Here is a record of our restoration of a 1928 craftsman. We will be the second family to live in the home. Watch our progress when we prevail and our privation and pratfalls as we do not.
Three blocks from us is a small house whose entire front yard was a gigantic multiple trunked maple tree. Rowan and I would walk by it on Fridays coming home from school. This tree was VERY dead and the front was hollow. Nearly every time we would go by I would tell her that a dead tree like that was dangerous and it should be removed.
Well, it went down on Saturday, and to add insult to injury it took out the NEIGHBOR's house!
Here is the county assessor's picture of the tree, you can only see about a third of it in the picture:
Here is a picture of the neighbor's house:
Here is a picture from 2003 that gives you an idea of the size of the tree and the placement of the two houses. 24 has the tree 30 is the neighbor:
Here is a photo from the Iowa City paper this morning:
What you may notice is missing would be the chimney from the neighbor's house, there is also major damage to the roof, windows and front portico. The paper said the tree was 22 feet in diameter (I believe this since it was about 5 trunks all together and if measured on the long part of the oval base that would be about right!) Here is what the paper had to say:
"At 9 p.m., University Heights police were patrolling when they also heard what police Chief Ron Fort described as a loud "explosion" or "crash." When officers arrived on the scene, they saw that the tree, 22-feet wide in diameter, had fallen into the roof, took off the chimney and caved in the east side of the two-story house. It smashed the front the home, took out the windows and part of the porch and also brought down a power line." Iowa City Press Citizen
Tonight and tomorrow's forecast is for a storm at least as bad again. I think I'll go home and light that candle...
4 comments:
Hey Mike! I'm also an Iowan houseblogger. :) My area got hit pretty hard by that storm too, we were lucky we only lost a few already dead limbs and our mediacom service. I'm hearing that Iowa is supposed to get hit by two more storms...I really hope spring gets here soon!
Get ready for more. We got nailed in Utah again today, and everything we get heads your way. 1-2 feet in the mountains. Sure glad I didn't own that tree, or the white house.
Holy cow, you weren't kidding about that tree! From what I hear Iowa was hit harder than we were. We also have more storms heading our way tomorrow. Dang, maybe I should have ordered one of those candles too.
Off topic - I'd be interested in seeing some photos of your finished upstairs. I've been continuously amazed at how orignal it looked.
Thanks for the concern, folks. We in the east central part of the state didn't get it too bad, and it is sleeting a little now, so we'll see what the next day and a half brings!
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