Chainsaws and dry socks: Austinites step up for neighbors during ice storm

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AUSTIN — The distant whine of chainsaws pierced the nonstop plops of ice falling from hanging tree branches as mates and neighbors dragged limbs throughout lawns, tossing them into moist piles alongside the streets of Balcones Woods.

The collective effort to maneuver particles off roofs and from backyards demonstrates the mutual assist that residents say is attribute of this Northwest Austin neighborhood.

“That is the very best little neighborhood in Austin,” stated Eric Calder, a resident for nearly 20 years who spent the final two days coordinating a warming shelter and serving to neighbors take away branches from their roofs amid temperatures within the excessive 30s.

Virtually the entire neighborhood, which encompasses about 500 houses, has been out of energy since 5 a.m. Tuesday, Calder stated. House costs in Balcones Woods hover simply above the median for the town, which is $525,250.

Wearing a brown beanie and a tan Carhartt work jacket, Calder had simply completed dissecting a tree department from Aaron Nightingale’s yard with a borrowed chainsaw.

Nightingale and his spouse purchased their home in Balcones Woods, now surrounded by downed bushes, throughout the 2021 winter storm, the irony of which doesn’t escape him.

“It could be a little bit too full circle,” Nightingale stated, gazing up at his punctured roof.

Calder was simply certainly one of many within the neighborhood serving to their fellow neighborhood members decide up from the storm, bracing for possible one other evening with out energy, one other day with children residence from college, anxiously listening for extra branches to fall. With downed energy traces wreaking havoc throughout the town and no clear estimate when electrical energy shall be restored, neighbors stepped as much as assist the place they may.

Whereas working, a nut on the chainsaw got here unfastened and fell off, leaving Calder and his 14-year-old son Thomas Calder with solely a pole noticed left to chop the fallen branches. The ineffective chainsaw, mendacity lifeless on the truck’s tailgate, didn’t cease the daddy and son’s effort to assist their neighbors after the deluge of the storm had handed.

Timber cracked beneath the burden of collected ice after a number of days of freezing rain, which remodeled components of the Texas Hill Nation right into a chaotic scene of splintered wooden.

Marilyn Butler stated that huge limbs from a heritage tree, which she estimated to be over 400 years previous, got here crashing down in her yard on Wednesday, taking out a part of her fence with it.

“This man simply got here by way of together with his chainsaw and cleared all of it out,” Butler stated whereas she waited for her cellphone to cost within the Balcones Woods neighborhood heart, which had been remodeled into an advert hoc warming shelter by the hum of a generator. “That’s the type of factor that neighbors do right here.”

Broken houses and outages introduced challenges for Austinites with houses, however for neighbors with out entry to dependable shelter, the ice storm has been rather more harmful.

Sasha Rose, the organizing director for Austin Mutual Support, stated many residents of the town who shouldn’t have houses have been pushed additional into the woods since Austin voters selected to reimpose the tenting ban in 2022, forcing folks to remain out of sight of law enforcement officials.

Falling bushes pose a a lot greater danger to folks in tents than to these with a roof over their heads. Rose stated she’s heard of limbs falling on folks.

She criticized the town’s lack of effort to arrange ample shelters in time for the ice storm, significantly for households.

“This was the trial run and we fucking failed; we flunked,” Rose stated. “There’s no method that we might have been capable of deal with the quantity of unsheltered folks which are nonetheless on the market.”

With companions, Rose and her workforce at AMA helped put 30 folks, principally households, in accommodations across the metropolis. However with restricted assets, Austin Mutual Support can present solely a lot assist to the unhoused neighborhood within the metropolis.

A technique they’ve been capable of have a wider attain, Rose stated, is thru their cell warming station, a 30-foot RV that’s been outfitted to are likely to the extra rapid wants of among the metropolis’s most weak residents.

“We go and verify on folks and we convey them inside, allow them to heat up for a minute, give them some provides, dry socks, heat meals, refill their bellies and simply verify in on them,” Rose stated.

Rose stated that one other day of subfreezing temperatures would have had devastating results on the neighborhood. Temperatures are anticipated to hover round freezing Thursday night and get into the 50s on Friday.