‘A nightmare’: Temple family grapples with consequences of ice storm, trees falling on home

TEMPLE, Texas (KWTX) - Jacob Drumm was on a trip in Michigan when he received word from his neighbors that trees had fallen on his house during Wednesday’s ice storm.

“They walked over to our property and noted that two trees had split, one landing on the first story porch roof and then the other one landing on the second story roof,” Drumm, a Temple resident, told KWTX.

But that wasn’t the worst damage. Drumm’s wife’s car was also hit with tree branches, shattering her windshield.

“It’s been a nightmare,” Drumm said. “It’s done some damage to the front end of the car. Thankfully, the brunt of the limb fell about a foot away from it, so it’s all the branches coming off of the main limb that did the damage.”

This is the case for dozens of Central Texans, as tree removal services start their cleanup efforts to help pick up the pieces.

“Today the phone’s definitely ringing a lot, with ice weighing down live oak trees,” Neill Goss, the owner of Goss Tree Service in Waco, said. ”We’re getting a lot of limb failure right now.”

Goss says the trees most impacted are evergreens due to their larger leaves that can hold onto ice.

“Water is extremely heavy,” Goss said. “You add that to the entire volume of the tree and it’s gonna be more than the limbs can hold.”

The weight of this ice is also impacting conductor poles, prolonging the power outages prevalent across Central Texas.

“The ice accumulation on the conductor is creating such loading,” Brandon Young, the general manager of the Heart of Texas Electric Cooperative, told KWTX. “The weight of the ice is pulling poles over and pulling the conductor off of the pole.”

As of Thursday night, nearly 20,000 people have been impacted by these power outages in Bell county alone, and many of them still have no idea when their power will be restored.

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