Sunday, January 31, 2010

Chain Saw Sunday

 
Yes, today Townsville is buzzing - literally.  The chainsaws are out and people are clearing away the fallen branches, fallen trees and other debris left behind by Tropical Cyclone Olga.  We didn't get the cyclone here, just the edge of the rain depression that she degenerated into.  The edge of the depression had a ton of rain in it and enough wind to fell more than a few trees.
After a week of flooding rain turning the ground to a soupy mud, it doesn't take a lot of wind to down a tree. 
In the top pic, I tried to capture the movement of the trees during one of the late afternoon gusts. It is hard to capture the wind :)
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Can you see that topless palm tree, third from the back?  It's top is lying out of sight on the footpath on right hand side.  I'm happy that its top is not on my car.   The wind was blowing in the right direction for me :)
Something else that is out of sight is Mt Stuart.  It should be filling in most of the rear of the photograph, but it is obliterated by rain and cloud.
A few seconds after I took this photograph, I heard a loud cracking sound and turned around in time to see a large section of a huge African Tulip tree, on another nearby property, come crashing down.  The tree still stands.  Sorry, I just checked again and the remnants of the tree are being cut down as I type and the scent of freshly sawn timber fills the air.  It was impressive to witness its fall.  About a quarter of the tree's canopy broke away.  It looked so light and graceful, but probably weighed several tons and would have demolished anything underneath it. It was between two rows of houses, so I can't see if it did hit anything. I hope not.
Our drive to and from church today showed just how patchy the storm was.  Some areas were littered with debris and others had hardly a leaf out of place.  Many areas were without power for hours.  Some are still without power. Fortunately we never lost power for a second.  
Just as well . . .   I was watching Nanny McPhee on the telly.  It's one of my favourite movies.

6 comments:

  1. It was very very windy here, but I didn't see too many fallen trees & branches. I did see cars on the kerb sitting 1/2 submerged because our streets all go under water fairly quickly here. I also created a bow wave about twice as high as my car when I misjudged how deep the water lying over the road was. At least I wasn't out for sightseeing & it wasn't intentional (& I was only doing about 30kph)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! windy...
    I was watching Nanny McPhee last night too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a storm that was!
    Nice blog.

    http://z10.invisionfree.com/Journey_Back_in_Time

    ReplyDelete
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  5. Great job done and well written post. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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Mr. Sunshine & Grannysaurus

Mr. Sunshine & Grannysaurus

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About Me

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Townsville, Queensland, Australia
I have worked as a Biology lab assistant, Pathology lab assistant, geochem lab assistant, land tenure researcher, hospital and prison chaplain, parish care coordinator and part owner of a small business. I have studied some science (no degrees) and have a theology and a chaplaincy certificate. I still love science of all types and enjoy studying theology. Science and theology belong together. At present I am a work-at-home Grannysaurus.

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