July 7, 2012

Last Saturday morning, June 30, I learned what a “Derecho” is. I had never heard of it before, but now I will never forget what it is and what it can do.

Downed tees, snapped limbs, etc – the tree damage was just as bad and in some ways worse than what we suffered with Hurricane Irene. It will take weeks to clean up whats on the ground, and months to clear hangers and twisted limbs high up in the trees. We will also need to remove some of the damaged trees as there is nothing much left of them worth saving.

We were without power to the shop and clubhouse Friday night through Saturday – for the shop it meant we couldn’t charge out work carts, had to siphon fuel for the equipment, made equipment repairs by flashlight, and were unable to charge our phones for communication, and so on. It made things hard, but not impossible – we began the clean up and have kept going ever since.

Worse was the loss of power to the pump house. For three days – Saturday (91 degrees f), Sunday ( 98 degrees f), and Monday (90 degrees f) we were without water for the turf.  We attached city water to the irrigation system with garden hoses which gave us enough water to lightly hit hot spots on the greens, but nothing else. We were able to procure a generator that would have given us power to at least one of our three pumps, but as the electricians were hooking it up, Atlantic Electric asked us to stop so that they could get the line repaired. At 4pm Monday power was re-established to the pump house and we immediately began irrigation cycles.

We brought in extra help for the cleanup, bought another chainsaw– and haven't stopped

And as you know, weather wise its been a tough week, with temperatures in the mid to high 90's– This is today’s headline from Weather.com:

Torrid Heat: 4000 Record Highs and Counting

Records will continue to be smashed in the Midwest and East as triple-digit heat continues.

Todays forecast is for 101 degrees f  with a very real possibility of severe storms tonight.