The Aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias at My Farm
Everyone is busy cleaning up at my Bedford, New York farm after Tropical Storm Isaias barreled through the region with destructive winds and flooding rainfall earlier this week.
It’s heartbreaking to see so many images of areas ravaged by this storm. Isaias' fast movement was propelled by an unusually strong jet stream over the Midwest and interior Northeast. Wind gusts of more than 60 miles-per-hour downed electricity cables and left millions of residents in the dark. Businesses were closed and many streets were blocked by fallen trees and power lines. I feel extremely fortunate my farm escaped any structural damage. I lost a lot of branches and a few trees, and all the buildings have been on generator power for several days, but everything here can be fixed, and my outdoor grounds crew is working very hard to get things back into shape. If you were in Isaias' path, I hope you and your families are safe.
Here are some photos.
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- The day started with overcast skies that grew darker as the hours progressed. These skies are very gray over my long and winding pergola.
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- The rain and wind were light at first, but the forecast called for gale force winds, flooding and even tornadoes. My outdoor grounds crew spent a lot of time preparing for the storm the day before – checking drains, catch basins, and air conditioner pits, securing all the doors and windows, and making sure all the animals were safe in their shelters.
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- I always worry about the outdoor plants during a storm, but these are all very secure in their pots outside the vegetable greenhouse.
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- By mid-morning, the trees began to sway, especially the cascading branches of the weeping willows behind my pinetum.
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- The winds quickly picked up blowing lots of leaves across the carriage roads. The National Weather Service reported the worst of the storm to be between 12pm and 2pm ET. Isaias started as a Category 1 hurricane which impacted portions of the Eastern Caribbean. It moved up the east coast as a tropical storm before transitioning into an extratropical cyclone over Quebec.
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- There were great puddles of water everywhere – the rain was coming down fast and furious.
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- In this photo, one can see the heavy rain over my terrace parterre just outside my Winter House.
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- The whitish areas in the distance are really sheets of gusting rain over the paddocks.
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- The crew surveyed the property several times – always by car to keep them safe from any falling branches. This area in one of the back hayfields looks okay.
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- Small branches and leaves fell around my Woodland Cottage. Nestled under lots of larger trees, I am glad it did not suffer any damage.
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- One could hear the crackling sound of breaking branches in the woodland. When Tropical Storm Isaias developed, it became the earliest ninth named storm on record, breaking the record of Hurricane Irene in 2005 by eight days. Remember that storm?
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- Branches flew everywhere as the gusts grew stronger.
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- This branch fell onto the carriage road near my grove of Japanese maples. Luckily, it did not fall on any of the trees.
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- Usually, with breaks this big, the main part of the tree needs to be cut down. This tree is in my azalea garden.
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- And here is the branch that fell. This will have to be cut up in sections before it is chipped.
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- Along both sides of this carriage road are young pin oaks we planted last fall. I am glad they are staked and well-secured. I always stake young trees to give them added support. Some of these trees are leaning and will need adjusting, but they all survived.
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- The combination of softened wood and high winds is so bad for fully leafed-out trees.
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- This branch snapped off the tree and “planted” itself into the ground.
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- I am glad most of the trees survived the storm. Isaias moved fast, but it blasted through this area quite mercilessly.
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- It is not too bad to see fallen branches and boughs but broken and uprooted trees are so difficult to clean up and so sad to lose. These two trees were uprooted right behind my tropical hoop house.
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- Luckily, the trees fell toward the carriage road in the maple woodland and not on the hoop house itself. They also fell between smaller trees, and did not create too much damage on the way down.
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- In the orchard, many of my young fruit trees were left leaning. They have to be re-staked upright.
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- This carriage road leads to the woodlands. The storm left a big mess in its wake, but everything at the farm can be fixed. My heart goes out to those who did not fare as well.
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- The pool area remains intact – the umbrellas and the furniture covers stayed on. The big cleanup will take several more days. I will share more photos of that process in another blog.
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