3' diameter oak tree, free for the taking...

[Eric DeSilva]

Downed tree is in Arlington, Virginia. Easy to spot--it's the one sitting on top of my BMW coupe.

[Paul McGaha]

Sorry to hear it Eric. Unbelievable storm we had last night. Powerful and fast moving. Shook our house out here in Ashburn.

PHM

[John Spitters]

No pictures ...... means it didn't happen
All kidding aside, it's hard to take when it happens to you.

John

[Eric DeSilva]

Eh, this is what insurance is really for. Never seen storms like that. Calling it a microburst.

[Sid Matheny]

Been there - done that! Mine happened on Mother's day and Just got my truck back last week. I feel your pain!

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?186497-Bad-Start&highlight=

Sid

[Jim Underwood]

Ow. That really stinks. Sorry about the crushed car....

[Roger Chandler]

That storm was a doozie! Over 90 mph winds :eek: in our area........took trees down all over.....our subdivision looks like a war zone today! I spent the day cutting up some of those white pines in our yard, and all over there are trees down..........a willow across the street, bradford pears all over the place, my next door neighbor had a large canadian spruce come down, and just missed his truck.

One of our white pines came down on my neighbors car. A friend of mine who lives about 10 miles away had a huge white oak snap off up high and the top came down on his Ford F-150.........it can be fixed, but it will require some major work. Today I got some maple from one neighbor, a call for some bradford pear from another, some more maple from another neighbor, and who knows in the next few days..........that was the worst storm many remember ever having here in our area!

[charlie knighton]

sorry about your wheels, we just got power back at 630 pm, and i feel lucky that it is up

[Dave Carey]

We lost our power at 11:00 pm Friday and got it back about 8:00 am today. Feeling very lucky to have power and no downed trees. Just lost a lot of food; all replacable of course. Also very appreciative of the utility folks, in our case Dominion Virginia Power, who are busting their butts in 90-100 degree weather.

[Scott Lux]

Sorry about the car, but I love your attitude. It's just stuff. Insurance can handle it.

[Mike Cruz]

Eric, they can call it a microburst if they want to, unless of course "micro" extends from Chicago to the Eastern Shore!!!!! That was a nasty storm we got there, wasn't it? Hope you've got power back on... For those that don't know, the DC metro area had 1.5 million electric customers without power! I was out from 9pm to 4 pm...about 19 hours. Luckily, I have a generator that powers the whole house. My inlaws STILL don't have power. Probably won't until later this week...

Eric, why was your BMW outside? Isn't that why I got the planer out of there...to make room for the car?!?! ;)

[Eric DeSilva]

Mike, looks like "derecho" is the term of choice now. I actually had a whole house generator installed three months ago--good timing, I suppose. Its enough to power the critical and a lot of comfort to boot, including the heat pump, the coffee maker and the TV. So I'm actually feeling pretty lucky, all things considered. County finally came in this morning, chopped up the tree and hauled it off, and they managed to life up the telephone pole long enough for me to move the car from under the wires. Not drivable--windshield smashed--and a lot of surface damage, but a lot less than I expected, considering there is a telephone pole lying a couple feet from it and how much tree was on it.

The planer made room for my *wife's* car. My part of the garage is, er, filled with a small metal shop.

[Prashun Patel]

I can't imagine what kind of storm falls a 36" oak!!! Sorry for yr loss. We have a bunch of big trees in my back yard and I shudder to read things like this and realize we're one storm away from roof damage.

[Mike Cruz]

Metal shop, huh... Now I know a local metal guy! Woohoo! ;) Now I won't have to bug Jeff with every inane thing I need. :D

Not sure I get the "derecho" thing. Isn't the "right" in Spanish? I mean, it came from the left didn't it? If they are calling it Derecho because it was a storm moving TO the right...well, 90% of our storms do that. I think they are getting carried away with the Nino/Derecho thing...

Anyway, glad the here the car isn't a total loss. I've got a 15kw generator and does pretty much my whole house, except just not everything at once. What size generator did you have installed?

[Eric DeSilva]

The news guys were saying derecho was "line" or "straight" in Spanish? I also heard it called a "bow echo" storm, although, as far as I can tell, the "echo" parts have nothing to do with one another. If you lived through the storm, you might appreciate this 12 hour loop posted by a meteorologist: http://twitpic.com/a2aa87/full

I ended up getting a 20kW. Was aiming for less, but when the wife and I started thinking about the labor costs for the install--gas work and electrical transfer switch, permits, etc--the generator cost became sort of a lesser issue. I'm actually wondering if there is a way of screening it to reduce the noise. It is kind of loud... Maybe a bunch of shrubs. Or a little fencing with some staggered slats or something. Be nice to cut the noise by 10-20 dB.

[Eric DeSilva]

I looked at the base of the tree--it had shelf fungus on the outside and the inside was completely rotted away. Probably should have been taken down a long time ago. I don't think there is much that will uproot a healthy oak that size...

[Mike Cruz]

20 ought to run the house just fine! When I went the route of getting a generator, the choice as a bit easy for me...I got my 15kw generator for $2,000...and it runs on gasoline. To move up to a unit like yours would have been at least 5x that, and would have run on propane. Because of initial cost, I just made the decision that I'd have to go outside (usually in the rain, at night...) start her up and plug her in. Believe me, I'd LOVE to have it just automatically kick on when I lose power, but when I think of what I saved $ wise, I'm okay with it. That said, if I had the extra money, I'd have gone your route... I AM jealous...

[Eric DeSilva]

I think the real reason I pulled the trigger was last year's heavy rains and power outages. When we got all that rain last year, I lost power for about 24 hours--they restored my power then just as I was contemplating pulling the batteries out of my truck to feed my sump pump's dying battery backup. Given all the water coming down then, the pump was running continuously and I was really getting worried about a flooded basement. After all, that's my wood shop!