The Tree That Withstood Hurricane Rita

Back in April of '06, (about seven months after Hurricane Rita passed over our little town) during a bit of a rain, our oak--a mighty oak (one of several on our property), standing next to our driveway, and my husband's truck, decided it was tired of standing there any longer and simply lay down for a rest. As you can see it decided to rest directly upon the cab of said truck.

My husband and I were eating lunch during the rain on that Saturday, April 29th, when our youngest daughter came down and mentioned in passing that a tree had fallen in the front yard.

Husband's first response: "Oh, come on!" He didn't believe it at all.

Daughter's response: "Yeah, I think so."

Husband's second response: "I didn't hear anything. Are you Sure?"

Daughter #3's response: "I'm pretty sure it fell. You can take a look for yourself, if you want."

Husband's next response: "It didn't fall on my truck did it?" More hopeful, I think, than in despair that it had. (Yes, the truck had a few years--like about 17 of them--of use and several of its parts no longer worked as originally designed. He was hoping for a good excuse to get a brand new pick-up. You can't blame him for that!)

Well, as you can see for yourselves, the Tired Tree had determined that the truck cab would be a goodly place to take a respite. This tree is not the largest of the large oaks I've, in recent months, observed that have fallen. That said, this mighty tired oak fell across our driveway and most of the front yard. By some miracle, it mostly missed falling on our house. There was some minor damage to roof and edges, and cedar shingles on the front of the house--mostly scraping and scratching as it made it's way down.

What was interesting was that because it eased on down, there was no crashing sound! And, as it settled slowly, unobtrusively (to anyone's ears) the mighty weight of it all kept following the dictates of nature, i.e., gravity, and continued to scrunch the truck until the tires squashed nearly flat and the headlights came on. I didn't mention that the tires on the truck were only about a month or two old. It was shame to have invested so much on tires used so little.

After we made our initial investigation into the extent of the damage and what we could do, I called our trusty and excessively capable and kind tree removing friend Robert and pled with him to come help!!! The fallen tree effectively cut off all vehicular activity from our driveway. My vehicle and Daughter #3's vehicles were blocked from exiting the drive. And, since after I called Robert, the rain really began in earnest dumping three or more inches in less than 1 hour, yes! I did say it dumped more rain in the next hour. Actually, in about 1.5 hours we received about 4.5 inches! Let me tell, you, THAT is a LOT of rain in a very short time! Funny thing is, though, that more rain fell AFTER the tree fell, than before. Maybe the heavens were weeping at it (the tree's) demise. Or perhaps at the trucks? Or both? Who knows. It just put down a BUNCH of water!

Trusty Robert came to scope out the damage and see what needed to be done. He knows his business. Is an expert. I've watched him work. He's good. He ascetained that a few large timbers would shore-up the fallen trunk enough to allow our other vehicles to escape the driveway--which was a very good thing, because our Daughter #2 would be flying in to a somewhat nearby airport with her two small children the very next day and would need someone--Grandpa in this case--to rescue them from the airport and transport them to the house with the resting large oak covering the front yard.

The saga only gets better. I'll tell you later about the hilarious conversation(s) I had with our insurance company about what was and/or wasn't covered by our very costly homeowner's insurance. It was a party, I tell you!