Ice Storm! (live, metro area, news)

[Ozarks21]

Great picture Randy. What should be noted is that all of the trees you see would ordinarily have their lowest branches at around 8' off the ground. Many large trees have their tops bending over below that now.

[Susanmp]

Those are amazing pictures. You should see what Hurricane Isabel did to me in VA a few years ago. One of those 80 foot trees fell in my house...the good thing is, it wasn't cold until the day they took the whole roof off my house to fix it. We had no heat upstairs, only a small portable one to take a shower with. Took us 7 months to get back to normal. I just can't imagine that damage with all that ice. My mom lives on Moscow Mills, near Troy. Thankfully she kept her power on.

[jd_hassell]

Wow and I thought it was no big deal compared to Michigan's usual weather haha...
I think Michigan & Missouri are switching weather patterns this year, and since I'm probably moving to Springfield next year it's kind of ironic...
Just to put my 2 cents in

[MoMark]

This ice storm was the worst experience of my life. I literally spent three days petrified of being killed in my home by a crashing tree. The trees didn't just lose limbs, they exploded like gunshots and then you'd hear a resounding "craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!", then the trees would either partially or totally collapse with a huge THUD/BOOM, some shook the house with the weight hitting the ground. The first round on Friday started bringing limbs down within an hour and it iced up very quickly. By Saturday trees were crashing left and right and my property looked like a war zone. Not to mention because I'd lost power the night before, the house dropped to 50F. On Sunday the rural cooperative sent a crew out and they stripped the ice off my sagging power lines to the house from the road and pulled the power lines up with a special machine, came down the driveway and trimmed limbs in the way, etc. Keep in mind that while they were working, trees were falling. It was very scary. And the lawns were like millions of frozen thumbs, difficult to walk on and hard as rock frozen solid. Limbs littered everywhere. Then 45 min. after the guys got the power restored, torrential rain hit Sunday evening and within a half hour, trees were collapsing so fast all around me that I literally was jerking my head left to right and back again watching them fall. None of my trees (over 40 of them on the front 2.5 acres) actually uprooted and fell over, but many split in two and then crashed and ALL lost most of their limbs. The two acres of forest behind my house has trees lying all over, but since it's wild, I'm not going to worry about it. My neighbor has fully grown oaks lying on the ground with rootballs exposed and his 3 acres look like a tornado went through. It's really bad.
None of my neighbors were injured and miracles happened where houses under thickets survived by an inch as trees crashed everywhere but actually on the houses.
By Sunday night with the power out again and the temperatures diving, my house fell to 38F inside and I refused to get out of bed under all the quilts and comforters with my animals lying next to me under the covers for warmth.
Then my neighbor called and asked me to come to their house as they had propane heaters and then he got a generator, so while he was in a hotel in Springfield doing his job of de-icing streets for private accounts, I stayed in his house and pumped his sump pump manually (basement flooding), hooked up his pellet stove to the generator, got the refrigerator hooked to it, and then guarded his property.
I was worried about my water pipes bursting and causing real damage from freezing in the house as it was 8F Tuesday morning. My neighbors put a special propane heater in my house and I opened all the cupboard doors in front of every sink and plumbing area. Got the house from 35F to 72F in five hours!!!! The rain was so heavy that it flooded the front and then froze into ice, but my sump pump stopped when the power went out as well. I wasn't too worried as my house sits five feet up with a deep crawlspace. That same neighbor's generosity lending me a high-energy propane heater saved my house!
The damage is so extreme that I don't know how many months it will take to clean this up. The trees are shards in many cases. The ice hasn't melted at all yet and there's nothing you can do but wait.
I drove around north of Springfield yesterday and was shocked at the damage in town. It's as bad as out in the rural areas. Older neighborhoods in particular are impassable. Here are pics
County farm road near my home:
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r199/MoMark/IcestormRoad.jpg (broken link)
My front acreage with split and fractured trees:
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r199/MoMark/icestormCfrontdrive.jpg (broken link)
More damage in the front acreage:
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r199/MoMark/IcestormFmyyard.jpg (broken link)
The trees behind my house. Notice all the tops are shards. Trees weigh a lot more than people think. With an inch and a half of ice on them, they weigh literally thousands of pounds. They crash with a huge force.
From my neighbor's sunroom with has a huge limb lying on top of it looking toward my home in the background. You can't see it clearly in this photo, but three huge trees are lying on the ground with their rootballs exposed and his property is feet deep in fallen trees through most of it. We're trying to figure out how to clean this up when it becomes possible. We don't think we'll be done until July or August.
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r199/MoMark/icestorma.jpg (broken link)
The white in the photos is NOT snow. It's ice. We got a light dusting of snow on Monday afternoon, but the snow was light. We're now supposed to get 4-8" of snow this weekend.

[gonefishing]

Thank you so much for sharing these. It helps those of us in other states to realize what is going on. Sadly, we have numerous relatives there and none of us (away from there) had any idea this had happened! (I have talked to one and they try to down play it so we don't worry.)

Please everyone, continue to post your pictures.

I'm interested in any pictures you might have of homes in a subdivision east of the Battlefield Mall. If I remember right they had several trees in their addition....some tall and then one of the big Christmas tree types (spruce?)

[simplymikki]

we are in the middle of moving to forsyth, mo and got to see the ice covering springfield. WOW!!! it's made moving pretty treacherous to say the least. i hope all of the people who have been w/o electric and heat see some relief soon. it was really devastating for the elderly

[sunshine girl]

While this storm was terribly destructive to trees and some damage to houses due to falling trees/limbs, most folks still had there houses intact, thankfully. True, after the thawing, some homes will be further damaged by water damage from burst pipes. But to someone who has come from hurricane central and witnessed the vast devastation that years later is still apparent from hurricane Charley, it was puzzling to see how unprepared folks are in this neck of the woods in the Springfield area for any kind of widespread natural disaster. I am originally from Illinois tornado country, and then most recently from south Florida hurricane country. I guess I assumed both the regular joes and the city leaders would have a more organized plan for assisting the many in need during this time. I mean, lots of trees so near to the houses, trees planted and allowed to grow under overhead lines, that's kind of poor judgement. Please, I'm not trying to be unkind to those who have suffered any misfortune or harm from this storm, or make light of anything, but maybe this can be a community wakeup call for the future. You have no idea how long folks were and are still affected by Charley, some fought for years with the insurance companies, some houses still have blue tarps in places, there were wide swaths of communities wiped out. But just like here, folks helped each other. But unlike here, where for the most part, folks still have their houses, they lost everything in Charley. And that was Charley, think of Katrina. Yes, things are bad here, but they could be, and always could be, worse. We need to work together to make this a more prepared community, I know I plan to get involved somehow. This is too populated a place not to have bette civic planning. There, thanks for listening, I feel better, guess I had to get that off my chest. And let's continue to help each other during the aftermath of the storm.

[Vonnie2828]

I Grew Up In Webb City And Now Live In North Iowa But I Do Have 8 Sibblings In The Webb City Area I See First Hand The Devastation In The Lifes Of Them From This Very Bad Ice Storm We Just Want You All To Know We Are Praying For You All In Southwest Mo

[AnthonySA]

Wow, MoMark -- how scary! Hang in there

[MoNative34]

Originally Posted by AnthonySA

Wow, MoMark -- how scary! Hang in there

Not to worry, he's in a better place.