Disaster!

We've had some really lousy weather this last week, with a snowstorm dumping about 8" of snow this past weekend and, over the last 24 hours or so, a blizzard that dumped 16-18" of very heavy, wet snow that clung to everything: shrubs, roses, trees, you name it.  I was sitting down to dinner yesterday when there was an enormous crash and the entire house shook.  I ran outside to find that the old spruce in the side yard couldn't take the combination of being encrusted with all of that heavy wet snow and the howling wind.  The trunk had splintered near the ground and it had come crashing down, fortunately missing the house but obliterating the side yard garden and bringing down the power and phone lines with it.  By some miracle, I still have power and phone though the cables now drape over the street.  The street is barricaded and the power company was just here (some 9 hours later) to cut up parts of the tree to free the lines.  They will now have to come and restring them from the house to the pole. What a mess!  What's even scarier is that earlier in the day, after cleaning the driveway and sidewalk during a lull in the storm, I had been in the garden shaking snow from the roses and was in exactly the spot where the tree came down!