4pm-
Greetings and welcome!
The storm is under way and so far not too terrible. The last that I checked there were about 35,000 people out of power in WPS service area, not bad considering the size of the service area. Here is a map on the WPS site that shows what is out where.
My travels this morning and afternoon took me down to the Twin Bridge area by X & Parkway. Halfway through my service call we lost power down there. I went to the next place a few miles north and the lost power 5 minutes later.
Farther north Parkway and C were still on when I went by, and the power was/is still on here 4-5 miles west.
The storm brought a lot of rain, probably an inch and a half or more. Ditches and puddles were full. The wind has been strong with a few amazing gusts.
There are a lot of trees that fell, and my my observation the vast majority were dead oaks. They seem to rot from the roots up. There were also spruce & popple, but not as many.
Generally healthy trees are handling the winds, dead ones are taking a cleaning. There were more trees down south of C than north when I came back home a little while ago. Since then there were a few gusts that really roared against the house.
So far the storm has caused some power outages and some trees down, but it is not too dramatic. Most of the trees down were the sick and dead ones.
The power crews have been out in force, and working hard to stay on top of things. There are also plenty of places that people moved downed trees to make a road passable again. Just watch out for power lines if you do move trees.
It is not widespread devastation by any means. There are mostly dead trees down, and some power lines too.
6am-
Our much hyped storm is here and in progress. The rain and wind are going pretty good, but nothing abnormal. There are fitful downpours here and there that really pound the roof, and the wind is up to 25 and 30, but again, so far all is well.
The lights have flickered a few times, but have stayed on. The TV said that there are already outages.
This will indeed be an intense storm. The two low pressure areas are just coming together and things should start getting interesting later as it strengthens. It has picked up considerably in intensity in the last few hours.
I will be back over the course of the day with updates as the storm progresses.
RJB