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

After an ice storm, Eric Calder and his son Thomas, 14, help move large tree limbs from a neighbor’s backyard in northwest Austin on Feb. 2, 2023. Calder and his son were part of a neighborhood effort to clean up their neighbors’ yards. (Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune)

Editor’s note: This story contains explicit language.

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