Has anybody used their Power Trac to help deal with Hurricane Florence?

[BobRip]

We took down three big trees yesterday in preparation for Florence. I had hired a neighbor to do the work as the trees were near the power lines and the house. He is a professional, but would not accept money. His crew showed up and their tractor had a bad tire. I got the PT 422 out with the grappling bucket and was able to move all of the brush and wood. Actually it was getting late and we did not finish the wood moving. They have a really nice chipper which would take up to 18 inch diameter wood. When I say the guy is a neighbor it means he stores his equipment on land he is borrowing which is behind me. I have always been courteous to him. I did tip his crew $20 each, but it痴 a small price. (Obviously). What have other痴 experienced?

 

[MossRoad]

Pretty much anytime there's an east coast hurricane, it's several days of just plain beautiful weather here in Indiana. Blue skies. Wishing anyone effected out east the best.

18" chipper is huge. My employer just tore down some very old housing in prep for new construction. There were probably 50 large, mature trees on a 5 acre site. They hired a "real" logger to come in and clear the trees. I've never seen such large machinery on such a small site. They had a feller buncher, two skidders, and a chipper that had it's own excavator-type arm to feed the chipper, and a large loader with forks. They took maybe 4 days to cut all the trees, load them on semi's, chip anything not going on the flatbeds, load all the chips into dump trucks, and they were gone!

I sometimes fantasize that my little PT425 with the logging tongs on it is a big skidder when I'm pulling my telephone pole sized firewood from the woods going all out at 8mph in reverse. :laughing:

 

[larrydman]

They used to get French Canadians to come here and clear timber ahead of the surface mines. They would bid the jobs figuring one acre a day per man. Those were mountain acres too. Granted they were just felling trees, but those boys could cut some wood.

 

[BobRip]

Nobody. We had 8 tornadoes from Florence remnants form in our area (Richmond VA) last week. We stayed in our crawl space for the worst of it. I think only one touched down and it made NBC first news article that night. How did the PT help? It is right next to the crawl space door. A great comfort. I am glad we made it ok. My prayers go out to those affected.

 

[MossRoad]

Tornados terrify me. I've never seen one in person, but have had 6 or 7 come within 1/4 mile of me.... YIKES!

 

[cqaigy2]

Glad you made it out ok!

I have some memories of my Grandfather and Grandmother ushering us children downstairs and having us hug the wall, apparently a tornado touched down near by. I was too young to know what that meant at the time, but i'm sure glad they are rare around here.

 

[ponytug]

Hmm. I grew up with tornados, and I would take them over earthquakes any day. You get so much time to prepare for a tornado. Earthquakes, not so much. Of course, we always had basements, so a tornado was a great excuse to move out of the heat into the cool of the basement.

YMMV of course. I think that perhaps the grass is green on the other side of the fence, and I wouldn't wish a calamity on anyone.

I would take both tornados and earthquakes over floods or storm surge always. So many folks are going to be ripping the insides out of their homes and rebuilding just to get rid of the flood waters.

All the best,

Peter

 

[woodlandfarms]

I was in the heart of the Northridge quake. It was a heck of an experience. I have only seen a tornado from a distance. That was enough to know I have no chance if mother nature calls my number. Now in Portland we are looking at the next monster quake and how it will turn my house at 350ft into ocean front property. Doubt it will survive the expereince but it would be nice.

 

[SpringHollow]

Paddling in a kayak up in Canada and a waterspout took me for a short ride in the air while getting pounded with falling water. It was weird to see some fish in the air as well. Then it dropped me and went poof.

Ken

 

[MossRoad]

When I was a kid, we were driving home from out grandparents' cottage in a thunderstorm. It poured so hard, my dad had to pull over. While sitting there on the side of the road, little black toads started hitting the windshield! Thousands of them. My dad figured a tornado had picked them up from some pond area nearby and dumped them on us.