I hope all of you in LA made it through the hurricane. I am sure you are all still dealing with the aftermath right now. I just wanted to say we are thinking about you and hope you and your families are well and you get power back soon--I know what it is like to be without power in this heat and humidity!

Skeet
We caught the edge of the eye wall and luckily this storm had weakened before it reached us. I have been on generator power since Monday morning but looks like the power may be restored today or tomorrow. I had very little structural damage but lost one old hackberry tree and almost all trees have broken limbs. All of the young fruit trees in the orchard are now pulled back to the horizontal position and tied down. Hopefully they will survive. Most of the bananas are flat on the ground with the Williams hybrid being completely uprooted.
Hurricane Ike is the one that we both need to watch.
Karl

Glad your OK Karl. We have Hanna predicted to reach here tomorrow night or early Sat with Ike not far behind. Hopefully Ike takes another direction...

Karl,
Glad to hear things were not as bad as they could have been. How did you citrus fare?

I was worried about the fruit on a couple of trees, so I took a rope and made several wraps around the tree, pulling all the limbs with fruit up tight. I think the worst winds we got were in the 30-35 mph range, but watching the tree after I tied it, I think that the idea would have worked for winds that were much higher. The top where it was not tied was whipping back and forth, but the limbs with fruit that normally hang toward the outside of the canopy were completely still.

As for Ike-- I don't like Ike. I hope he makes a turn toward the middle of the Atlantic like one model has it.

Lazz, I hope Hanna misses the coast all together--and stays a tropical storm.

All is good now that power was restored last night. I had to remove several limbs from the hamlins but the Satsuma’s handled the winds much better with almost no damage. The worst hit was the lemon tree that flopped around in all directions. There was a wollered out hole around trunk of the tree.
Yes Hanna is going to be a mess the way it is skirting the east coast. Good luck Laaz.
Here is a very good site for tracking hurricanes. It’s called Bear paws weather. When it opens just keep scrolling down until you get to the maps. Here’s the link http://www.bearpawsweather.com/tropical/

Glad you got your power back--it always makes us appreciate it much more when we loose it for a while. You got it back pretty quick--but I am sure that there are many that won't have it back for a while yet--I feel for them--we were without for almost 3 weeks from Ivan.

Satsumas are apparently really tough trees-- at the Auburn experiment station in Fairhope where the eye of hurricane Ivan crossed, they said that all the satsuma trees still had most of the fruit on the tree, but the Hamlins and gft were all on the ground.

I am still very concerned about Ike, it looks bad for South FL, but it could still get into the Gulf and hit the middle Gulf states afterwards--Everybody needs to blow east--maybe we can turn it around!.

Karl, glad your're OK - I always look at damage & realize it coulda been worse. The hurricane did us some good up here. We finally got rain after none for over a month. Everything was parched but is greening up now. It just blew rain strait up here but we didn't get all the wind.

Well.... All we got was heavy rain. No wind to speak of at all. Today is bright & sunny and the humidity is back in force. I see that Myrtle Beach & N. Carolina got hit a little bit harder, but not much destruction, just some power outages.

Great that you are ok Laaz. Ike was updated and is headed into the gulf. If we get another hurricane this year I am selling out and moving up there with Millet! Snow has got to be better than this.
Karl

Laaz
This is the worst of the citrus damage. This Hamlin was about 10’ tall and now less than 6’. Do you think that I should cut it back a little more? I just removed the damaged trunk limbs but it still has a long split trunk.
http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/2002/dscn1749eh4.jpg

As mentioned the satsumas are tough but they were not untouched. Here is a picture of exposed roots and this is typical of almost all of my orchard trees. I am adding soil around the base of all of these trees.
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/2586/dscn1751db7.jpg

The one miracle is this Ice Cream banana that was positioned to escape both north and west winds. I found the flower the day after Gustav’s passage. 90 days to produce fruit and our first frost is about 75 to 80 days away.
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/6387/dscn1753gj4.jpg

These are my Orinoco’s piled up against the greenhouse frame. What a mess.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8940/dscn1755ij6.jpg

My orchard has wind brakes on the north and west sides so I was fortunate to have minimal damage there. The 20 pecan trees are a mess and I doubt that I will salvage enough pecans to make a pie.
I feel fortunate since one of my friends had a 70-year-old live oak crash through his roof. God never sends you more pain than you can handle, anyway that is what I believe.
Karl

Hi Karl,
I would leave the Hamlin alone for now--at least let the oranges that are on it get ripe--by then you will know what is really damaged.

Joe posted a series of pictures on how to get a late blooming banana through the winter.

It really could have been a lot worse.

I am like you on Ike, but I think if I move it will be to the middle of Alabama--I don't like cold!

I agree with Skeeter. Let the tree ripen the fruit and wait till spring to see the full extent of the damage. I have seen some trees repaired if it is done right after the damage. Ned had a satsuma that split, he screwed the split back together. He should be able to chime in here.