Trees Falling

Half a tree fell in front of our house this morning, nearly falling on top of Matt's car. I wasn't there to see it happen, but Matt heard the crunch and crash of the one side of the tree breaking away and falling. Since the tree is so close to our house and Matt was still in bed, he rolled off the bed onto the floor just in case the limbs went through the window. It's all good at the moment, but our neighbors had their power and cable knocked out. The weather has just been crazy today. Rain, thunder, hail, wet snow, more rain, wind, and some more rain. The wind and rain is causing the lower (aka southern) end of Chautauqua Lake to flood a little since the wind is pushing the high waters up onto people's property. It's funny that a year ago, people were bitching about how low the lake levels were and now they're calling and bitching about how high the levels are. Nothing we can do unfortunately. The Warner Dam (on the Chadakoin River.. moderates the lake levels to a degree) has its gates totally open which probably means some low level flooding above and below the dam. Ah well. That's life!

If you ever want an interesting read on flooding that happened in the Genesee Valley area after Hurricane Agnes in 1972 (or Lake Ontario shore flooding), go to the Rundell Library in Downtown Rochester and ask for the historical/geneology section. It used to be in an un-air conditioned room in the older library, but I think they moved it. There are several scrap books of news articles and photos from the flooding. I could sit there for hours, pouring over the old clippings. I think part of a hospital collapsed into the Genesee River in Elmira and the Mount Morris dam came very close to over flowing. All very interesting stuff. And a good comparison for how we're actually doing 30 years later.