Tour de storm damage

Tuesday evening here featured an elemental display of wind and rain.  The rain was so intense that visibility was reduced to such an extent that I could see the street but clearly not across to the other side.  We got several inches of water backed up into the storm water back up basin which is now adjacent to our house.  The basin worked.

The wind howled, we lost a couple of medium branches but no big branches or trees.

Lots of our neighbors were not as lucky.

I did not get a ride in yesterday but I went out today to see what vestiges of the storm were still present.

It was about 40 hours after the storm when I hit the street.  For context our next door neighbors had a branch down onto their power line during the storm taking their power out.  When I set out on my ride today they were still running their refrigerator from our extension cord plugged into our outdoor outlet on the deck.

40 hours later.

So when I set out for Norah's house yesterday I glanced down the next street over.  There was a tree down blocking the street.

I wasn't surprised to find that the obstruction had been removed but I documented the stump.

It should be obvious from the diameter of what remains that that tree was plenty large enough to span the width of that suburban street.  That one is within as the crow flies about a hundred yards from our house.

This one made the local news.  That tree blocked Roselawn just west of Lexington.

I was looking at that when our neighbor who jogs came up.  We had a nice chat, she said she was hot and sweaty, asked about our situation etc. etc.  A nice chat.  I ride a bicycle, I was a bit hot but the miracle of evaporative cooling was keeping me mostly plenty cool and definitely not very sweaty.

Here's the first one I came too that hadn't been cleaned up yet.

My intention was to ride mostly in Roseville but I also wanted to see Lake Como and the Fairgrounds.  It is hard to ride in only in Roseville and also ride at those two Saint Paul locations.

The above is Saint Paul which some would be able to determine by the debris in the left foreground.  That tree took down a light post when it went down, one of decorative City of Saint Paul light posts.

This one was still about 90 percent blocking the street.

There was just barely room for a bicycle to get past.  I don't think a car could.

This one is mostly cleaned up but that giant patch of ground ripped up with the stump struck my eye.

That was a big tree and here is what it did to the much smaller tree directly across the street.

I was getting closer to home and back into Roseville when I came across this spruce on the back side of the HarMar parking lot near Cub.

There was another one a little bit farther along that was on the power line, dragging what may well have been a live wire down to about the 4 foot above the ground level and a spot where a sidewalk passed directly under the wire.

Here's the last one.

That, now THAT was a big tree.  There isn't any evidence of a stump in the front yard but those blue tarps on top of the house tell me that there is a stump in the back yard.

Those people have a serious problem.

I got home and the neighbor has power.

We, of course, never lost power.  We have a generator, the power never goes out here.

Today in France, another bunch spring, Cav wins the stage for his third victory of this year's Tour.  I admit to being one of the many who proclaimed before the race began that the Age of Cavendish was over.  Chapeau to Cav for proving me and all of his other doubters to be completely wrong.

And in Marseille, semi-finals of Euro 2016, France 2, Deutschland nil.

France in the final on Sunday at Stade de France in Paris suburb Saint Denis against Portugal.