Wind Damage II

Oh. My. G*D. I just saw our late friend Marie's house, which is around the corner from where Joey D lives. We were driving Joey home tonight and he described for us what kind of wind damage was done in front of Marie's house, but it had to be seen to be believed. First of all, the enormous tree that had been in in front of her house is completely down, and blocking access to the front of the house. Mind you, houses on that street have a lawn in front and are set WAY back from the curb, so for an obstacle that starts at the curb to be able to block that much area, that's one very large obstacle. It was a VERY large tree. Second, half of the equally huge tree belonging to the next-door neighbor also came down. Just the half-tree alone would have been a formidable amount of wreckage to deal with, never mind the grand total of debris on Marie's (and both her neighbors') properties.

Wow. OMG. My mind is boggled. All I can say is that if both the passing of Marie, who was 98 when she passed away, and all this damage both had to happen, then I'm glad the damage happened when she was no longer here to see it. She would have had an absolute nervous breakdown if this had happened while she was there.

Meanwhile, even as I type, PECO is trying its darnedest to replace a displaced wooden light pole that came down. We didn't lose electric during the storm (as far as I know -- I wasn't home until it was over), but the area around 20th and Snyder can't say the same.

And I'm glad that we walked mini in the park around Stephen Girard's mansion last weekend, when everything was still standing. Turns out that was my first and last trip there with the park entirely intact (and shaded... sigh), because there are multiple trees down there, too.

And Moyamensing Avenue, of which I posted pictures shortly after the storm, looks WORSE instead of better. All the downed trees and limbs are now piled in the grass strips that line the middle of the street. With everything gathered all together like that, it appears there's even MORE debris than I originally thought.

Just wow. I can sincerely say that I've never, ever seen this much damage from any weather event in my lifetime, and I know I've only seen a small fraction of it.

Thank God we don't get weather like this on a regular basis. I feel even sorrier than I did before for people who have to put up with hurricanes on a semi-regular basis. I can't imagine hours on end of wind even worse than what came through here.