This is the scene all over Baristaville this morning. Sunshine, crusty snow and branches and limbs down everywhere. There are traffic signals out throughout the area — leaving drivers to their own devices, and tempers.
To the left are two pictures of Barista Kids editor Georgette Gilmore’s lovely dogwood tree — in its spring glory and yesterday.
A freak October snowstorm plays a pivotal role in Scott Spencer’s 2003 novel, “A Ship Made of Paper,” and we learned yesterday that the author had it right. Blizzards before the branches are bare are particularly devastating. From Spencer’s book: ‎”Outside, the trees continue to explode beneath the weight of the snow. It sounds like a long, nasty war is being fought.”
It was bad enough for Gov. Christie to call a State of Emergency.
Here’s the latest from Bloomfield Mayor Raymond McCarthy:
Hugh amount of trees and tree limbs down throughout all of town. DPW has a full crew out there moving and cutting. Many downed wires which r preventing us from cleaning some areas. My block has no electric due to downed wire which started a fire. Please remind everyone to stay away from those wires & call the Police about them.
It’s too early to know what the extent of the damage will be, and as of 10:30 a.m., 43 percent of readers responding to our poll, said they were still without power.
The sound of buzz saws has just joined the sound of snow shovels in our neighborhood.
Tell us what you found when you woke up, and post pictures of your damage to our Flickr group.
And among the big mess is that the Bloomfield High School Class of 1971 reunion was scheduled for last night! Needless to say, it was canceled at the very last moment — and after who knows how many people traveled to the area for it to join their old classmates who are still local!
Those travelers were expecting some beautiful changing leaves — but that’s not what they got.
This storm was an arboreal Armageddon.
Indeed, Pork Roll. It was reported that Central Park lost over a hundred trees during Irene, but may have lost over a thousand this past weekend.
Irene took what was left of my towering oaks (lost 4 in past 2 yrs). I was in process of planting new trees but they all split. Had I thought it out in advance I should have wrapped them.
One of my pines that I planted years back and was about 20 ft high and provided a great border buffer now looks so bad even Charlie Brown wouldn’t buy.
Between deer eating all my Boston Ivy and the trees that have vanished, Herbs yard looks much like the one of his inner city youth sans the basketball backboard nailed to the garage.
I know the feeling Herb. My 100 year old maple has never lost major limbs until now. It was a magnificent tree until Saturday afternoon. How about that global climate change thing?
Why because we’ve had the first Oct. storm in 100 years? If they start happening on a regular basis then we’ll chat.