October Storm Part III

"holy $#@!" was the first thing that left my mouth when I finally got into the city. I had finally realized what was wrong with the trees. Every tree was missing at least one major branch. the weight of the snow on the still leaved tree limbs was too much for many of the trees to handle. The worst was Wellington. reduced to a one way lane zigzagging between humongous piles of snow and branches. We made it to my place and decided to stay there for the time being. The time being wound up being 2 days. The University at Buffalo actually closed. THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO NEVER CLOSES! EVER!! The city of Amherst declared a ban on driving until the mess could be cleaned up. When we finally were able to return to campus, they had laid the broken tree limbs perpendicular to the roadway, side by side. The reminded me of those old photographs of mass graves after a genocide, only they were tree branches. The fall-out from the storm was quite miserable. Neighborhoods protested that many of the oldest trees in the area had been marked for removal due to irreparable damage. That was always news, this "84 year old man said his great grandfather planted that tree 150 years ago" or something similar. The argument always being that the residents couldn't see what the arborists saw wrong with the trees. Piles of branches still there a year later. The weathermen predicting it will happen all over again a couple of times the next fall.

One thing is for sure...The trees don't look the same.