Irene Trumps Restoration

Hurricane Irene was a good news/bad news event for Preservation Virginia. The good news was that the Surry properties of Bacon's Castle and Smith's Fort had no structural damage. They had eight mature trees blow down between them, and not even a garden bench was broken. The bad news is that since no structures were damaged, insurance pays none of the costs of clean-up. What does this mean to the Restoration Department? Well, someone has to remove all that tree debris. Since Irene, the department has cut up, picked up, and hauled 23 trailer loads of brush to the fire pile at Bacon's Castle, about 138 cubic yards. As you can see from the second photo, five of the Holly trees in the courtyard at Smith's fort came down. Two large walnut trees to the West of the house also were uprooted. The Rolfe-Warren branch plans to use the wood from the two walnuts to make gift shop items.The first photo shows a very large Pecan tree, which was damaged by hurricane Isabelle, that blew down at the Southeast corner of the garden at Bacon's Castle. The pecan is in such poor shape not even the wood can be salvaged. At its current pace, debris clean-up will continue well into October. When the fire pile dries out, there is going to be one heck of a weanie roast.