It was a dark and snowy night...

Bridge Collapse

A brutal mid-winter wind storm has brought down the covered bridge at the Todd Crossroads, pushing most of the cover right into Elk Creek. The bridge itself is concrete and still sturdy -- just blocked by a collapsed wall. It's perhaps the most exciting thing to happen here since ... well, things aren't very exciting in Todd this time of year. We've discussed bringing in the Minnesota bridge collapse study committee to investigate and some have suggested singing a chorus of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Maybe "London Bridge is Falling Down" works.

Latest edition of Todd Tribune

Here's the latest news from Todd from the Todd Tribune. To paraphrase an old newspaper publisher from North Carolina, "it's the only newsletter that gives a hoot about Todd."

http://newrivertrain.googlepages.com/tribunewinter2008.pdf

Ice Storm II

The above photographs come from Laurel Springs along the Blue Ridge Parkway where the ice was thicker and the damage more widespread. Here in Todd, few trees fell, but the old corner cherry tree in front of Todd General Store did lose its biggest limb(below).

Slip 'n' Slide

The only sounds this morning are the salt trucks rolling and the crash of limbs under the weight of a hefty accretion of freezing rain. For some reason, I'm always drawn to ice-covered fences. The folks over at Blue Ridge Electric have a nifty realtime map of power outtages http://bremco.maps.sienatech.com/ which makes for good indoor entertainment, unless you happen to be one of the dots on the map.