It blew hard all night making it a little hard to sleep. But we got up early and got Nick off to school about 7:05 a.m. I sat in the sunroom reading scriptures and writing in my journal. I was watching the wind blow the trees like crazy and pondering how strong they are, bending and moving with the wind and storm, but not breaking. Leaves were blowing off and there were small twigs all over the yard. Made me think about deep roots, shedding bad habits, and holding strong to our faith.
I was ready to work out about 8:00 when the power went out. The generator kicked on right away. But while I was eating breakfast, Clara called. She was out of her breathing medication and toilet paper and couldn’t wait for me to come at noon. Could I come now? After assessing her mindset, I agreed I’d come now. I imagined her power out and the wind blowing making her anxious. Then she called me back two more times within the minute, and had no memory that she’d already called me.
I pulled out of the driveway, and a huge tree had fallen just west of our house, blocking our street. Wow! I turned around and came upon another tree fallen on the other side of the road! I could get around it, so kept going to Clara’s, but it was so wild to see these two big trees down!
I did some shopping for Clara and got her prescriptions refilled and sat and visited with her all within a couple of hours. I was a little worried about getting home. But inside her house, you could hardly hear the wind and the power was working so her space heater had the room warm and cozy. On my way home, around 11:00, the wind seemed to have stilled.
But when I drove into my neighborhood, I could hardly believe what I was seeing! Trees were down everywhere! A man on the corner lost three giant trees – they had quite a presence as you stopped at his corner to turn toward our street. Now completely crashed over.
On our street tree crews had cleared the roads, but still had the bulk of the trees to saw down. On a side street, several machines and crews were working on six other trees that had fallen earlier that morning. Neighbors were out everywhere helping with chainsaws. In fact, I ran into Dan talking to a neighbor – both with chainsaws.
Back at home I walked around surveying the damage. I saw our neighbor had lost a large pine in their backyard that had fallen and just missed the house behind us. Another tree on the other side of the river had fallen over and landed on her shed. The willow tree next door was broken in two.
I wanted to move Clara’s car (she wants me to help her sell it) into the garage. I was worried a branch would fall on it and demolish it! Dan was trying to fix the chainsaw so couldn’t help for a bit. I walked down the street and saw my neighbor had lost FOUR huge pinetrees! One in the middle of her yard and three on the perimeter which had all been blocking the road. I was a little nervous walking around with the wind still blowing.
Finally at 11:20, we moved the car to the garage. I sat in the car on the driveway while he got in the side door and opened the garage manually because the power was out. I watched him close the driveway gates so they wouldn’t blow around in the wind. We walked back to the pool and picked up a cushion and suddenly a huge gust blew pickleball over. We pulled it apart to bring it into safety and heard a huge thunk and realized another tree had fallen and maybe hit a house.
When we went out front, one tree from across the street had fallen on one side of our driveway and another had fallen right on the gate where Dan and I had been just 10 minutes before! Another gust burst through and one of the workmen started shouting at his crew and us to go back in the house for safety.
When we came back in, we found a big pine in our backyard had blown over in the gust! Actually, not gust, I meant to say, hurricane-force winds! And then… it started to snow!!!
Well the rest of the day was kind of chaotic. We didn’t dare go outside for a few more hours. Nick got home from school and wanted to walk around, but knowing how quick the last burst happened, I was worried about him being outside. So I kind of followed him wherever he went. Up and down the street was a mess. Thankfully, tree crews were everywhere working quickly to clear again. Neighbors were out checking on each other, surveying the damage and getting misty eyed about all the trees down.
Dan and I took a walk in the evening. It’s still so hard to believe how many trees are down! Everywhere we look they’re entangled in power wires so I doubt we’ll have power for a while. We chatted with several strangers and everyone is bonding over surviving the chaos.
What amazes me most is that so few houses took hits. There are three with trees on them, but no noticeable damage. That’s so incredible given the sizes of the trees and how many there are. They could have easily pummeled houses.
Most of the trees are brought up at the roots. But our friend’s tree snapped in half, so wasn’t as tall and didn’t land on their home. If it had come up like the rest, it would have flattened half their house.
Generators are running throughout the neighborhood. You can hear the loud hum wherever you walk. Ours powers our fridge, the kitchen lights, the microwave and some outlets in the kitchen. Also the garage doors – so we can get out. And the master and Nick’s bedroom lights. However, we are having Nick sleep in the guest room because the winds started up again this evening and we’re worried about one of our big front trees coming through his window.
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