I live about 15 miles west of Springfield, and our whole area was hit VERY hard with the first wave of freezing rain. Two more waves are expected tonight and tomorrow. The first round was enough by itself. The only houses without tree damage don't have any trees.
We have about 1/2 inch of ice coating everything above ground. Thankfully, the roads are fairly clear of ice. The last ice storm we got in December was especially hard on elms and cedars. This one is much worse, nearly every tree has some damage. Many major failures, including oaks and osage oranges. The remaining elms are demolished and silver maples took it really hard in this storm.
I'm worried that the trees which havent lost limbs will start to uproot as ice and wind load is added tonight and tomorrow. I've seen that twice today, trees which were standing when I'd driven by earlier were uprooted later in the day.
Springfield had roughly 60,000 homes without power today, and all the surrounding areas have large percentages of the power grid down. I have no power at my house, my family is staying at my brothers house about 5 miles from home. His road is the only place around here where people have power in this ordeal. And thats only because he's 3/4 of a mile from the substation.
We started receiving calls about 11pm last night, from people who wanted to be early on the list. One client, a property manager called today and said she had 53 rental properties, all with damage.....heres the list, start the cleanup as soon as you can please. We just got caught up from the last storm, and this one is much worse. By monday night, we will probably be booked for 30-40 days at least.