This winter seems to be full of El Nino's storms. All around the country have been reports of significant storms. We have had a couple of doozies including one wind event and one snow event. The week before Thanksgiving found the Northwest Washington nearly blown into Montana.
The Northwest has a great deal of evergreen trees which often have a single tap root or surface roots making them vulnerable in windstorms to being blown over pulling up the root.
Nearly 3/4 of the households in the area were without power. At one time nearly 200,000 households.
The house above was located one block away. Though there was extensive damage no one was injured by this tree. Hundreds of trees came down in the Spokane are in the Parks alone. I never saw a tally of the number of trees downed or ones that snapped off leaving tree trunks across roads and downed power lines. School was closed for five days before power could be restored to the schools and students could safely walk to school.
Our church had power and heat so it opened up as a warming station where people could gather, eat and charge there electronics. Lots of cooking went on and we provided lots of baked brownies and cakes to the cold and weary.
High winds ripped off shingles from our roof but they were easily repaired when repairmen could get to us. Our cable, internet and phone were finally restored after 6 days on Thanksgiving day.
We were lucky.
The week after Thanksgiving another wind storm had every one frightened with the dire predictions. It was windy but did not deliver the damage as the week before. Then before Christmas the snow began. It snowed and snowed.
When you have a generator, it needs to operate at least once a month to keep it in good working order. So I go out turn on the generator and small electric heater and dream of future traveling times.
It may be pretty, but.....I long for Spring! Finally I see the ground again....
