Still strewn

A few days after the Sunday LA Times Travel section finally featured my neck of the woods in its series highlighting various SoCal neighborhoods, the crazy Santa Ana winds paid a visit and left much of the SGV one huge, hot mess.

Three weeks have passed, and the sidewalks are still piled high with broken branches.  As I drive about town, the tress still standing show evidence of their branches twisted and snapped off; lifted sidewalks and root balls the size of cars are common sights; and there are piles of branches, pine needles, and palm fronds broken up here and there by parked cars along the roads. 

Here's a series of photos, where the damage is totally unreal (courtesy of the L.A. Times); it's hard to imagine that a huge tree can fall so suddenly until you see it. And it wasn't just a few, but a few hundred trees that toppled. Below are shots I took on a walk around the block the other day.  This is the street one over from me, which  is lined with huge eucalypus trees that are probably as old as the Craftsman homes there.  In one of the picutures you can see a hydrant, for scale.

Poor, old trees. It makes me sad.