Neil and ENTS, Thanks for the report and the pictures. When I was a kid (before 6th grade when I was put in a Christian school), I remember riding the school bus to school one morning after an ice storm. All white birches (gray birch) in the entire area were bent over to the ground. On one particular road between our house and the school, there were birches on both sides of the road. They were all bent over, nearly meeting in the middle of the road, and therefore the road was blocked. When we got to these trees in the school bus, the driver turned the bus around and found an alternate route. As she was turning the bus around one of the other kids yelled "Go through it!", but she said that she couldn't do that because it would ruin the trees. To my knowledge, not a one of them broke, and all sprung back up to the way they were, later on. I have quite a vivid memory of this, even though it was only during one of my first 6 years in school. Barry P.S.- In my experience, around here the trees that are most susceptible to breakage under the weight of snow are tuliptrees and white pines. Any tuliptrees and white pines in the area always lose large branches during a heavy snowstorm or an ice storm. Other species always fare much better.
--- On Sat, 2/28/09, neil <[email protected]> wrote: From: neil <[email protected]> Subject: [ENTS] re: January Weather in Review To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009, 8:20 AM Hi ENTS, Although this is technically February [and essentially March], I wanted to share some images from the KY Ice Storm from the last week of January '09. I hadn't experienced an ice storm as severe as this one and it was fun listening to and seeing how different trees responded to the ice. I will not forget the persimmon next to my kitchen window just pop all night on the 27th and rain branches down onto my roof or side of the house. I left town when my power went out on the 28th and missed the next few days. My 89.8 yr old neighbor told me the real damage to the trees would come after the ice melted and the trees snapped back. There did seem to be more damage when I returned to town. The silver maples were hit hard. But looking at the before and after pictures, it is amazing to see how many feet the outer branches sagged and sprung back. Some red maples were completely smashed, like this one on campus. The river birches next to the library were waylaid! It was pretty in the middle of them. They have since been cut. I made it out to central Kentucky and Mammoth Caves the last couple of days. I didn't make it into Big Woods yet to see how much damaged it might have experienced - hope to visit in the fall. The ice damage to portions of Central KY that I saw were something. Mammoth Caves Nat. Park lost power for a few days, too. The cedars and pines took it real hard. Angiosperms were hit fairly hard as well, but seemed to be less disturbed. These pictures are the worst. Most of the forest, like those in the bottom of the Green River watershed seemed to have less damage. Wish there was time to do a species review of damage. Would be very interesting. neil --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
