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UPDATE-NO CUTTING AS OF JULY 18 AT NEEDWOOD RD!

as of july 18th, that "Flagging operation" either was delayed or served some other purpose. No cutting was performed today on Neewood Road across from the ICC staging area there, but no doubt it will be very soon
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The builders of the ICC now have their own traffic advisary radio station on 1670 AM. On it they announced a "Flagging Operation" yesterday(Tuesday July 15) on Emory Lane. Today, trees had been removed from a long strip perhaps a dozen yards wide(parallel to Emory Lane, like a shoulder) on the West side of Emory lane, opposite the staging area and existing clearcuts.

The ICC radio also announced a second such "Flagging operation" (meaning lane closures) for Friday on Needwood Road, another site where the ICC crosses a road and a staging area is on one side. Already the ICC crews have bulldozed a path into the open field south and west of Needwood Road, similar to Emory Lane until yesterday. THIS IMPLIES THEY INTEND TO BEGIN TREE REMOVAL IN THE DIRECTION OF ROCK CREEK main stem as soon as Friday!!!

Trees are cut with a robotic machine that grips the tree in two claws and can cut a single tree in a couple minutes at most.

Watch how it's done on Youtube:

www.youtube.com/watch

One tree is shown being approached, cut, and dumped in maybe 15 seconds! At this rate an area the size of a football field with trees and bushes at two-yard intervals(a little over 1,000 trees and bushes) could be cleared in maybe 5 hours of nonstop work. Figure real-world maybe 20 hours for travel to different areas, clearing piles of fallen trees, and so on. This equates to two and a half workdays to advance maybe 100 yards if they are determined.

At this rate, I would predict tree cutting at Rock Creek's main stem(about 2,400 feet from Needwood Road) 5-20 work days after this Friday. Time varies with the number of trees per acre, the amount of open space, the width of the initial path to be cut, and the size of the trees to remove (thus both cutting time and how fast they can be driven with).

In addition, the last condemned homes at Cashell Estates have been destroyed, and digging has begun on the east side of Redland Road. This means Winter's Run will soon see ICC tree removal and bulldozing operations as well, placing Rock Creek's main stem under threat from two directions.

Rock Creek's main stem is probably the largest bridge Contract A will require, and as of now the crossing point is like a cathedral, where great trees form a roof of their leafy canopies and the steep sides of Rock Creek's banks form the cathedral's walls. Now this sacred place faces utter desecration at the hands of those who worship only money! In a month or two it may no longer exist.

Elsewhere, the Shady Grove Bridge now has a wooden walkway on it and steel atop the beams to accept the concrete deck. Fifteen-minute closures of Shady grove Road for bridge work are continuing this week.