How Hurricane Ike hit the Ozarks

This is a bad picture, but here is the tree before it fell. If you look right past Patrick, you can see the base of the tree covered with snow.

Our neighbors across the street had this gorgeous 100+ year old tree. It was probably one of the most beautiful trees I had ever seen. But, on the night that Hurricane Ike hit the Ozarks that tree was blown over by the winds.
In this picture you can see how it toppled the fence. It was completely covering the entire fence. Our neighbors are very industrious and that next day they were already cutting and burning up the tree.
You can see in this picture a dark spot in the middle of the tree. That is because it is hollow. Which is probably why it came down in the first place.

Chris and I had heard a huge crack at about 3:30 in the morning, and it felt like something had hit our house. So we got up and started looking around. It was so dark that you couldn't see across the street. The next morning when I looked out front, I knew what we had heard. Our neighbors confirmed it. Oh, what a night.