The wind shrieked through Obstruction Pass, a driving rain crashing 
against the windows. Gale force winds roared like a monstrous freight train. The old farmhouse rattled and groaned, the gutters overflowing. Broken branches scurried across the deck. At some point, the wind chimes ceased to ring, they just got too tangled.
According to the radio, gusts in Seattle and Everett were around 55 mph....We knew they were much harder here, over 70 at times. A row of giant Douglas firs bent like reeds. The roar was regularly punctuated by the crack of a tortured limb, now amputated. Sound sleep was impossible, as the storm raged on through the night.
Daylight brought some relief. The ancient trees settled into a rhythmic dance. They had survived worse. Finally, by midday, the gusts stopped coming. Was it over? The wind had calmed considerably, the rain slowed to a drizzle.
With no small apprehension, we went outside to scope out the damage. A blanket of fir needles and twigs covered the gravel of our parking area. Several widow-maker limbs lay across the driveway, with some smaller boughs scattered randomly. On the front porch some planters had been knocked over. A branch the size of a small tree hung off the edge of the deck. In the back, a hundred foot alder went down, just tickling the edge of our roof with its top branches. Stunned by our good fortune, we couldn’t help but laugh. No real damage, just an enormous mess.
Critters
of various kinds were out after the storm. Stiff from a night of huddling under cover, the farm cats emerged from their hut. A raccoon waddled out of a brush pile, looking bewildered. Nature’s hand had created shelter in some places, while destroying it in others. Small birds were on the ground, gleaning insects and seeds, enjoying the freshly fallen bounty. Always opportunistic, the deer took advantage of downed fences to feed from the neighbor’s succulent perennial garden.
Our power had not gone out. (We would later learn that our tiny area was the only part of Orcas that never lost it.) The morning newscast from Seattle was full of storm stories. The floating bridge was damaged and shut down. Power outages were massive. This was of great concern, and for more than just the obvious reasons: It was Super Bowl weekend. The first time in team history the Seahawks were in the big game. Over 100,000 homes with no electricity, no television!
A late afternoon trip to town showed us some of the destruction. As always after a big storm, there were changes in the scenery. Trees stood stark, stripped of all twigs and vines, leaning slightly, all in the same direction. The cattails lay neatly, looking like sheaves of harvested wheat. Several homes, previously screened, were now noticeable.
Amazingly, there were no trash cans, or trash can lids in the ditch. That was more common early in the storm season, when people were likely to be caught off guard. Most everyone battened down the hatches by October.
A whole row of recently planted poplars had snapped like twigs. An enormous alder had gone down next to the road. It was now stacked in cords of future firewood. In its place was an unobstructed view of Mt. Baker. At Buck Bay, the high water had re-sculpted the tidelands. In the park, huge trees were uprooted. A fair size limb dangled precariously over the middle of the road, just high enough to be completely out of reach.
An extreme high tide had combined with the winds to wreck
havoc on the shoreline. Several private docks had been badly damaged. Crescent Beach, usually so calm, was devastated. What looked like a decade’s accumulation of driftwood had been hurled up onto the roadway. The beach looked scrubbed. The county crews had already bulldozed the wet mess back toward the waterline. The access path was buried under a pile of debris five feet high. White, sun-bleached logs stuck out at odd angles. The pavement had heaved and buckled in several places. A procession of orange cones marched along the broken asphalt edge.
In town, many businesses were closed. A pick-up truck in the parking lot had one side of the bed crushed down, obviously the victim of a fallen tree. There was more trash here. Remnants of flyers dotted the shrubs bordering the street. The banner announcing Orcas Center’s latest production was twisted around itself.
The market was running on emergency power. Minimal lighting cast an eerie glow across the aisles. We ran into friends, shared gossip. How are things on Buck Mountain? In Deer Harbor? At Rosario? Good news, no one was injured, no one’s boat sank, and no one’s roof blew away…at least not all of it. Bad news, a neighbor’s tractor had wound up on the beach in a mud slide. The linemen had been working non-stop for over twelve hours. “The worst blow in quite a while” was overheard more than once.
Electricity was restored all over the island by Saturday evening. The rain eventually stopped altogether. Sunday the sun came out, for a little while. By Monday, the tattered look had left the trees. The Seattle news reported thousands of homes still without power. And the Seahawks had lost the Super Bowl.
In the islands, life went on. Already the driftwood had begun to settle. Clean up would continue for weeks, storm repair for months, but for now we could relax. Take a deep breath and let it out. Smile and enjoy the brief calm between winter storms.
© February 5, 2006 - Mary Cibulka Brown
against the windows. Gale force winds roared like a monstrous freight train. The old farmhouse rattled and groaned, the gutters overflowing. Broken branches scurried across the deck. At some point, the wind chimes ceased to ring, they just got too tangled.According to the radio, gusts in Seattle and Everett were around 55 mph....We knew they were much harder here, over 70 at times. A row of giant Douglas firs bent like reeds. The roar was regularly punctuated by the crack of a tortured limb, now amputated. Sound sleep was impossible, as the storm raged on through the night.
Daylight brought some relief. The ancient trees settled into a rhythmic dance. They had survived worse. Finally, by midday, the gusts stopped coming. Was it over? The wind had calmed considerably, the rain slowed to a drizzle.
With no small apprehension, we went outside to scope out the damage. A blanket of fir needles and twigs covered the gravel of our parking area. Several widow-maker limbs lay across the driveway, with some smaller boughs scattered randomly. On the front porch some planters had been knocked over. A branch the size of a small tree hung off the edge of the deck. In the back, a hundred foot alder went down, just tickling the edge of our roof with its top branches. Stunned by our good fortune, we couldn’t help but laugh. No real damage, just an enormous mess.
Critters
of various kinds were out after the storm. Stiff from a night of huddling under cover, the farm cats emerged from their hut. A raccoon waddled out of a brush pile, looking bewildered. Nature’s hand had created shelter in some places, while destroying it in others. Small birds were on the ground, gleaning insects and seeds, enjoying the freshly fallen bounty. Always opportunistic, the deer took advantage of downed fences to feed from the neighbor’s succulent perennial garden.Our power had not gone out. (We would later learn that our tiny area was the only part of Orcas that never lost it.) The morning newscast from Seattle was full of storm stories. The floating bridge was damaged and shut down. Power outages were massive. This was of great concern, and for more than just the obvious reasons: It was Super Bowl weekend. The first time in team history the Seahawks were in the big game. Over 100,000 homes with no electricity, no television!
A late afternoon trip to town showed us some of the destruction. As always after a big storm, there were changes in the scenery. Trees stood stark, stripped of all twigs and vines, leaning slightly, all in the same direction. The cattails lay neatly, looking like sheaves of harvested wheat. Several homes, previously screened, were now noticeable.
Amazingly, there were no trash cans, or trash can lids in the ditch. That was more common early in the storm season, when people were likely to be caught off guard. Most everyone battened down the hatches by October.
A whole row of recently planted poplars had snapped like twigs. An enormous alder had gone down next to the road. It was now stacked in cords of future firewood. In its place was an unobstructed view of Mt. Baker. At Buck Bay, the high water had re-sculpted the tidelands. In the park, huge trees were uprooted. A fair size limb dangled precariously over the middle of the road, just high enough to be completely out of reach.
An extreme high tide had combined with the winds to wreck
havoc on the shoreline. Several private docks had been badly damaged. Crescent Beach, usually so calm, was devastated. What looked like a decade’s accumulation of driftwood had been hurled up onto the roadway. The beach looked scrubbed. The county crews had already bulldozed the wet mess back toward the waterline. The access path was buried under a pile of debris five feet high. White, sun-bleached logs stuck out at odd angles. The pavement had heaved and buckled in several places. A procession of orange cones marched along the broken asphalt edge.In town, many businesses were closed. A pick-up truck in the parking lot had one side of the bed crushed down, obviously the victim of a fallen tree. There was more trash here. Remnants of flyers dotted the shrubs bordering the street. The banner announcing Orcas Center’s latest production was twisted around itself.
The market was running on emergency power. Minimal lighting cast an eerie glow across the aisles. We ran into friends, shared gossip. How are things on Buck Mountain? In Deer Harbor? At Rosario? Good news, no one was injured, no one’s boat sank, and no one’s roof blew away…at least not all of it. Bad news, a neighbor’s tractor had wound up on the beach in a mud slide. The linemen had been working non-stop for over twelve hours. “The worst blow in quite a while” was overheard more than once.
Electricity was restored all over the island by Saturday evening. The rain eventually stopped altogether. Sunday the sun came out, for a little while. By Monday, the tattered look had left the trees. The Seattle news reported thousands of homes still without power. And the Seahawks had lost the Super Bowl.
In the islands, life went on. Already the driftwood had begun to settle. Clean up would continue for weeks, storm repair for months, but for now we could relax. Take a deep breath and let it out. Smile and enjoy the brief calm between winter storms.
© February 5, 2006 - Mary Cibulka Brown
0 comments:
Post a Comment