Trees don't fall silently

So we had this nasty storm blow through last night. It is still raining buckets and lightning as I write this today.

Right before the storm a bit of wind whipped through and I heard some boxes I had placed out in my carport start to blow around and hit the cars. I went out the door to get them and that is when it happpened. . .

It wasn't even raining yet. Just extremely windy for a a very brief amount of time. Tornado warnings in the area. Then, I heard this very distinct noice. A very loud cracking noise. Instinctively I knew what it was. A tree was about to fall. A VERY TALL PINE TREE. Maybe 100-150 feet tall - as most of them are. My ears told me it was coming from my backyard. I quickly calculated height in my head to where I was standing and decided to move quickly out of the carport so I could see where it was falling and avoid it. Because the carport is the closest to the back trees it surely could be hit if a tree fell toward the house. I ran out one side of the carport and that is when I saw the tree hit. It smashed through the neighbors fence behind us and landed in my backyard. A huge tree! BOOOOOOOM! It was something to see.

I ran into the house and got the kids into the master bathroom. Not so much for the tornado warnings as for more trees potentially falling. The master bathroom has an enclosure with no exterior wall and glass block sides. So if a tree smashed through the roof and into the room it would most likely be stopped by the glass blocks. Then, my husband stood in our master bathroom looking out the window watching the trees. I kept thinking, the neighbors trees fell on this side of the house during Katrina, I think we need to move to the guest bathroom which is more centrally located. Suddenly, he had the same thought and told us to get out of there as those trees next door were bending pretty badly from the wind. So we sat for about an hour in the guest bathroom until the wind died down. Thankfully, no more trees fell.

A little while later, while watching TV (it was still storming, but no wind) something hit our roof and shook the house and was very loud. We decided it must have been a large branch fell from one of the pines. We went out later to see and saw nothing on the roof or on the ground. Not sure what that was, but it was sure loud. I screamed out "oh shit!" when it happened. I was sure another tree was falling on the house.

Hubby reminded me that the 3 trees that fell on the house during Katrina never punctured through out ceilings (even though it did a great amount of damage to our roof and struture up top - as well as smashing our front porch) so even if one fell, hopefully it wound not hit us inside. I have to admit the one tree that layed it self nicely across our roof during Katrina and broke every rafter was QUITE LARGE in girth. They estimate over 60 years old.

It is just the fear of knowing what happened before and that it could potentially happen again. The trees are weaker since Katrina and many are dying from the beatles which makes them weak and hazardous.

We all made it through safely. Although our backyard was completely flooded during the storm and the water in the front ditch was up to the road and into our front yard. Both of which rarely ever happen. It just rained so hard the drainage couldn't keep up! After it stopped raining the water started to recede. I was out with the neighbors holding a flashlight while they cleared the debris washed away from everyone's yard from the drains so the water could continue to flow.

Craziness to say the least.