Ice storm damage

Today I took the Fury out for another ride, this time out to Pittsfield via Route 20 -- one of my favorite afternoon trips. It was sunny and slightly cool -- perfect conditions. After stopping at Barnes and Noble, where I picked up some new motorcycle magazines and an interesting hardcover collection of stories by H.G. Wells titled "A Dream of Armageddon" (most of which I don't think I've ever read), I headed back towards home on Route 9.

Along the way, I stopped to do something I've been meaning to do for the last couple of months -- take some photos of the damage wrought by one of the ice storms we had last winter. This storm knocked out power to thousands of homes for several days, and caused all kinds of headaches. I remember standing out on my front porch one night after the storm, and listening to trees cracking and splitting off in the distance. It was kind of creepy -- you could easily imagine some sort of large creature smashing trees out in the dark woods.

In all my years of living in this part of Massachusetts, I've never seen it this bad -- mile after mile after mile of trees either snapped in two or bent almost to the ground. In some places it seems like roughly every tenth tree has been damaged in some way.

Here's one view -- not the worst example -- along Route 9.



Birch trees seem to be especially hard hit -- I saw many of those bent almost horizontal. Of course, maybe they just showed up more clearly, given their white bark. I'm very curious to see how the woods recover from this damage over the next few yesrs. -- PL