Tulsa's Big Blow

[sauerkraut]

Mother nature says "down with trees!"

Yep you betcha, what goes up must come down. If you don't cut that tree down nature will do it for ya and take out a chunk of your house with it. Trees need to be trimmed and cut back and not left to grow wild and out of control. Have no power in your home today? Thank a tree for falling on the power lines.

[guido911]

As the current Vice President of Up with Trees...

Shut up.

I didn't know that "Up with trees" had a management structure. BTW, I couldn't find you at this monthly meeting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G880gxjj9dI

[AquaMan]

Crazy Derecho last night. Best we can tell...the 76 mph gust at the Tulsa International Airport is the highest gust reported at that site. The new Tulsa mesonet site had a 71 mph gust...and also had a 91 mph gust reported to us from a home weather station near 37th/Nogales.

The damage at the 37th & Nogalies area, Garden City, was widespread. Not terrible but everyone got some damage. Telephone poles on buildings, lines down etc.  I saw a metal shed in the boughs of a tree, and a trampoline about 20ft up a tree.

Sauer, even small trees showed damage. I suppose you are against metal buildings and trampolines too.

[guido911]

At some point, someone is going to have to sit me down and explain to me all the nicknames, districts, whatever the heck "Garden City" is, etc. in this area.

[AquaMan]

Garden City is just to the south of the Holly refinery on the west side of the river. Modest homes that were built for the refinery labor. The land is rich river bottom land and I suppose it is fertile garden land. It is now bordered on the south by a lot of trucking and commercial properties. Only the locals would know.

One area you should know about and avoid is Oakhurst. An area off of Southwest Boulevard just north of I-44 by the QT truck stop near Town West shopping center. It is unincorporated and quite bohemian. Loaded with salvages on one side and chop shops in the bottoms area where people have been known to enter, but never leave. Dogs have become the local security force and it is reputed to shelter many a meth lab. Nonetheless, I know a few decent people who live there and love the "freedom".

[custosnox]

Garden City is just to the south of the Holly refinery on the west side of the river. Modest homes that were built for the refinery labor. The land is rich river bottom land and I suppose it is fertile garden land. It is now bordered on the south by a lot of trucking and commercial properties. Only the locals would know.

I lived there on two different occasions and still have trouble remembering where it is when I see the name.

[carltonplace]

I'm quite certain he singled you out.

He should, I'm very wasteful with city funds. I should clock in at city hall and then go work at my real job.

[carltonplace]

Yep you betcha, what goes up must come down. If you don't cut that tree down nature will do it for ya and take out a chunk of your house with it. Trees need to be trimmed and cut back and not left to grow wild and out of control. Have no power in your home today? Thank a tree for falling on the power lines.

Or we could bury the power lines. You do realize that trees produce oxygen? I don't think you are getting enough of the right gasses wowerkraut.

[Conan71]

The damage at the 37th & Nogalies area, Garden City, was widespread. Not terrible but everyone got some damage. Telephone poles on buildings, lines down etc.  I saw a metal shed in the boughs of a tree, and a trampoline about 20ft up a tree.

Sauer, even small trees showed damage. I suppose you are against metal buildings and trampolines too.

Yet no power loss at our shop on the south end of Garden City.  Doesn't appear any of the other industries along 41st went dark either.  I'll have to drive around at lunch and see if the trampoline is still in the tree.  That's a neat nature trick!

[Hoss]

Or we could bury the power lines. You do realize that trees produce oxygen? I don't think you are getting enough of the right gasses wowerkraut.

+1

[patric]

Or we could bury the power lines.

When we start talking that way, the utility favorite "$1 Million Per Mile" pricetag enters the picture (bolstered by unrealistically adding transmission lines to skew the average):

or older, affluent neighborhoods start getting transformers in the middle of their front yards.

Is it time for a trip down memory lane?

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=7308.0
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=8216.0
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=7043.0
http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=8439.0


From 2007:
Facing an organized "Stop the Box" campaign against plans to bury power lines in people's front yards, officials decided Thursday to not bury the lines at all in Tulsa's historic Maple Ridge neighborhood.
Homeowners had been asking the power company to bury the lines in their back yards, where the above-ground transformer boxes wouldn't be visible from the street. But officials said the idea wasn't possible.
Now the lines won't be buried in front or back, at least for the foreseeable future, said Ed Bettinger, a spokesman for American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma.
"We've decided not to go forward with the project at this time," Bettinger said.

[AquaMan]

Yet no power loss at our shop on the south end of Garden City.  Doesn't appear any of the other industries along 41st went dark either.  I'll have to drive around at lunch and see if the trampoline is still in the tree.  That's a neat nature trick!

Over by the railroad close to the refinery.

I noticed gasl tankers lined up yesterday at the tank farms off 21st and about 52nd west. The power pole serving the area appeared to be down which meant no pumps to fill the tankers.

[carltonplace]

Trees and Electricity are at odds and there has to be a sollution that doesn't put a transformer by the front door.

[sauerkraut]

The latest wind speeds are now reported to be 85mph with gusts approaching 90mph, in the hurricane zone. We finally got our power back on Thursday night around 10:45 pm. The Admiral lost a bit of it's screen on the east side and it's still not fixed. That Admiral screen really took some heavy duty wind loads during that big blow, 85mph winds hitting that large surface area is one heck of a load- makes me wonder if the old screen did not burn down, it may not have survived this 85mph wind.

[sauerkraut]

Or we could bury the power lines. You do realize that trees produce oxygen? I don't think you are getting enough of the right gasses wowerkraut.

Trees are fine but not next to a house or where people live, and trees near a home need to be trimmed back and not allowed to grow out of control. Trees belong in parks and a forest not next to a house... Underground power lines have their own set of problems,  and tree roots can damage underground power lines just as they do to water lines and gas lines. There are too many massive trees next to homes and every time a storm hits down they go.. BTW Mary Fallin came to Tulsa Friday to check out the damage and offer state aid to the damaged areas.