Just got back from a short walk, the sun is poking through the clouds here and a light breeze is blowing. I did not see a single fallen tree anywhere in my 10 acres of woods or the surrounding forest. I was quite surprised. There were some small branches on the ground, but nothing more than I'd expect from any storm. I think the intense winds during the derecho already knocked down the weak trees.
The biggest surprise was the water level in Stephen Creek. I would just call it "seasonally normal" now. At the most, it is perhaps 6 inches higher (probably less) than pre-storm levels. This is certainly about 2 feet lower than the highest levels I have seen here over the past six years. We had pretty severe flooding about 3 years ago and this is nothing like that. Not nearly as bad as Irene either. There are signs that the creek was over its banks during the storm, but that obviously dissipated quickly. I guess that living in the "Sahara of the Pines" isn't such a bad thing after all.
Looks like we got about 4 inches of rain yesterday, which is more than most of the pines got.
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The Estell Manor website says that a travel ban is still in effect so I am not going out on the road, and I woke up this morning with a cold so I didn't feel like taking a longer walk. But I'm still very surprised at how lucky I was this time around. Sorry to hear about the other problems - hang in there, better days are coming.