The worst ice storm in Kentucky’s history struck the state in early February 2009, wiping out power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses. In urban areas, most power outages were caused by trees striking power lines. In my op-ed piece to appear in the Lexington Herald-Leader, I argue that most damage due to ice storms could be avoided with better urban forest management.
This slide show describes the damage done to trees by the ice storm. In the second part of this presentation, I will describe how future damage can be minimized by better forest management. (Note: For best results, please click the View Full Screen button at the bottom of the screen.
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Very interesting! Happy day, Kathy
Great stuff! We moved to KY six years ago from northern MN, and are still surprised at the differences in the way the states handle storms like this. Obviously, in the north you get many more, but hardly a year has gone by without one big ice storm here in KY, and I am not sure why better preparations aren’t made.
However, I will congratulate Bluegrass Electric for their foresight. Several years ago after a big ice storm they came through and were very proactive about trimming the trees around the power lines. I think it made a big difference since then, as we have yet to lose our power (knock wood!) for more than a day or so. During the last big storm (the one you blog about above) we only lost power for about an hour, presumably while they took the grid down to replace a junction box or something.
You can see some of our images from the storm here:
http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/Icestorm09.html
Laura