Riding out the Derecho -- or--Inland Hurricane of 2009

Friday, May 8, 2009, will be a day in Southern Illinois I will never forget. It was a typical morning as usual--Fred was gone to a doctor's appointment and I was doing things around the house. At about 11 a.m., it began to rain and afterwards I happened to look outside the living room doors and saw what I thought was Dogwood blossom petals all over the deck. Thinking that was kind of odd, I went out to take a better look and found part of the deck was actually covered with white, icy hail stones. That also reminded me of the big hail storm the night before which woke us up. As things were pretty calm at the time, I got a phone call from our Heating/A/C company saying they would not be able to do our scheduled maintenance that day because of storms in the area. When I told the lady on the phone that I had just discovered the deck covered with hail stones, she said that hail usually precedes high wind storms, which were being predicted for our area. Fred returned home around 1 p.m. and I fixed sandwiches for our lunch and we had just sat down to eat when the wind and rains began. As we sat there and watched the trees in the woods bend and sway and the winds continued to increase, we realized we needed to get to a more secure part of the house. However, in the midst of the commotion of the storm, it was like being mesmerized by was what was happening outside the house.

Prior to the storm, the area had been indulged by rain after rain and the ground was overly saturated. As sheets of rain pelted down and the winds blew at speeds of 80 to 100 miles per hour, large trees began to fall like dominoes. Tops of trees began to snap. When the 100 year old Oak tree in our backyard began fell, the house was jarred as it hit the asphalt drive and the retaining wall--narrowly missing the edge of the garage. It was about this time that our power went out. The storm raged on for what seemed like forever and after its furor passed, stepping outside to view its aftermath was a sight beyond description.

As I was trying to climb over the massive tree trunk that blocked the back door, neighbor Cheryl Greene appeared at the top of the retaining wall steps. She was out surveying the Ridge's damage and trying to find a way to get a vehicle out so she could pick up her daughter, Sonny, at Giant City School. As we clamored around the yard from one fallen tree to another, it became apparent we were trapped by downed trees. Not long after we ventured out, neighbors Paul and Stan Curtis came down the meadow on their four wheeler to assess the damage. Another neighbor, Susan Benefiel, was walking the Ridge trying to reach her daughter by cell phone and Brandon Greene was at work with his chain saw trying to clear the first of hundreds of trees that had fallen across Dogwood Ridge Road. The Skirsches, our neighbors to the North, were all away from home at the time of the storm while their two dogs, Scooter and Max, weathered the storm alone.

After an hour or so of surveying the damage around the Ridge, the guys joined forces--and equipment--and began to clear the lanes and roads. Paul and Stan Curtis had saws and a tractor big enough to work with the larger tree trunks and began cutting and moving them out of the way to clear a path on the south end of Dogwood Ridge. Lisa and Jim Skirsch arrived home later in the day, each having to abandon their vehicles at various points along Dogwood Road and walking the rest of the way. Work went on until dark. The hum of chain saws, both near and far, became the norm over the next several weeks. By the end of the day on May 8, Dogwood Ridge Road was partially opened to vehicles from Dogwood Road up to the point of our lane. The rest of the road to the North would be tackled the following day. The next morning, work resumed. Mid-morning the county sheriff's deputies came through to assess the damages to property and people. By late afternoon, the last of the trees on the road had been cut and moved out of the way, opening up all of Dogwood Ridge from Dogwood Road back to Benefiel's.

And then the work really began...weeks turned into months of cleaning up the mess in our yards. And the work goes on.