This is the view out to the deck when I woke up 10/13 and saw about 8-10 inches at my condo. Note the height of snow on the rails. The poor maple is bent and broken in many places, making much noise at night when it broke. It's a lovely wide tree and turns red in the fall.
This is the same tree, closer, at 7am, before the wind started blowing and the sun came out to melt the snow on the leaves. All green leaves on this maple tree, none red or orange yet.
View in morning 10/13 of the white birch which lost 3 arms (of 4). Very sad, this arm shown is the only survivor, it is completely horizontal at this point. It didn't break after the sun and wind came. In fact I could watch it rise like a ballet dancer -slowly- over a 4 hr period and it stands straight up now! Very resilient.
Here are the sharp spikes showing the 3 broken limbs. The broken parts amounted to 10-15 additional feet above the view. So that's gone. Now I will get more morning sun at dawn, which will be fine in the winter! There was no damage to my bldg due to limbs down. BUT as I surveyed the view in the morning, I couldn't count the number of limbs broken- just from one point of view. Of course the pine trees were fine. They reported that my township had 90% of trees damaged. Who knows if they all will die due to the losses, or just recover but look oddly shaped.
Left is the summer view of the white birch. My window is the top one. You can imagine the one arm totally horizonal; in front of my face practically!
Added info. on Tuesday 10/17:
Right is the view on Monday 10/16 in the sunshine, a very normal fall day. One limb is standing upside down straight up, one is draping over the steps and one is flat on the grass and is unseen. You could hear the helicopters flying over all day to survey damage, hear the roar of chainsaws to clear debris and people wishing that the good weather acts as an aid to the power line crews who have arrived from 9 states to assist; as far away as Michigan, New Brunswick Canada, and Rhode Island. Campus was closed on Monday but is open now.
This tree was split at the ground level, both fell onto garage buildings, not homes. Amazing!
Another view of this tree. I can see it from my kitchen.
This pine is on campus. The snow melted within about 1-2 days.
This one is near my home.
The yellow one is visible from my family room. These are the best pictures that show the wide range of what I am seeing. The local school district closed for the whole week! Yes, they decided this on Sunday. The power is still out for over 100,000. Power lines are all over the streets, very unsafe. My township was one of the hardest hit. The fact that I have power, and that it was out for only 2 days, is quite a miracle. Most citizens are bailing their basement sump pumps, lots of water there due to quick melting and the rain that came on 10/14. A friend told me of her oddyssey of buying a generator, had to drive to Cleveland to get it (200 miles). All local stores sold out.
The news on Friday showed a plane at the airport that had its nose tipped off the ground due to tremendous weight of 2 feet of snow on the wings! Remember this was wet saturated snow, not normal type. I called around for a hotel room but no dice, all booked from here to Rochester NY! That is 70 miles away! So you can imagine the stress of the people and the hotel workers. This weekend was UB's "Family Visit" weekend and I feel for those parents who got stranded here or stopped on the way here, since the storm arrived on Thursday. The mayor says that some homes won't get power until the weekend... that's 7 days! What an ordeal for them. The visiting crewmen state that they have never seen damage like this. I would liken it to images seen after hurricanes, but only trees are down, not cars, boats, etc. Interestingly, the oldest tree in Buffalo, at 300 years, did survive. Hmm.
10/26/06 Postscript: It truly took 10 days for all homes to get power back. There were so many out of state power crews they had to have large staging areas for the trucks- they used mall parking lots. Since local hotels were booked the crews had to stay in the Rochester area and come to Buffalo each morning by bus. The president declared Erie county a disaster area and now funding can come to help the clean up situation. There were some deaths due to the dangers of generator fumes. I suppose the stress of the cold impacts ones comprehension of the warning labels! There was talk of what to do about Halloween since there is no way the streets can be safe for walking at night, they are barely safe in the daytime with stray limbs strewn about. So the news said trick-or-treating will start earlier, when it's daylight and suggested using the trick-or-treat events at the local malls.
Photo albums:
http://newstrackerstormphots.blogspot.com/ This one has a picture of the plane tipped in the air.
http://www.wgrz.com/news/gallery/default.aspx
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v231/schlegelbagel/BuffaloOctoberDestruction/