The Winds of September

When we decided to ditch California for the Pacific Northwest, my biggest weather concern was trading in copious sunshine for way too much rain. And indeed, all the moss and rain gear and vitamin D supplements were quite an adjustment. So it was quite surprising to discover – after several blustery winters – that my absolute least favorite weather impact of moving to Washington is the wind.

Unbeknownst to us, Woodhaven is situated in rather aggressive microclimate prone to enough wind that we regularly ponder if it makes sense to install a turbine in our yard to harness the power of Mother Nature. Our little valley can have fir branches flying around and power outages and the persistent noise of a leafy freight train while just 3 miles away, it is silent and calm.

And so it was last Friday night.

We had seen the forecasts that some areas might get moderate winds, all warm and coming from the east. Fire danger arrows notched to the right, and rural burning and charcoal campfires were banned. Clearly not grasping the magnitude of what was about to happen, our preparations began and ended with cinching the cover around our new fire pit.

Putting on a baseball hat to keep my hair out of my eyes – and tugging it tighter to keep it on – I walked the 300ish yards to our mailbox at about 5:00pm. I was amused to discover a rouge innertube had wafted over from a somewhat-distant neighbor’s pool.

The blowing was pretty constant through dinner. Sometime around sunset, I braved the gusts to retrieve a decorative patio pillow from our yard. I confidently secured three other pillows by effectively smooshing them between dining chairs and our outside table. “Yep, that oughta do it.”

As I tried to go to sleep several hours later, I reassured myself that all the banging and clanking and creaking was just our basic windstorm. Nothing to worry about. Woodhaven has endured worse than the 35mph sustained wind our weather station was reporting. Nevertheless, I elected not to put in earplugs just in case something happened during the night that required my attention.

Our power finally went out for good at about 3:00am, as confirmed by the beeping alarms of back-up batteries scattered around the house. Reaching for my cellphone, I appeared to be one of the first to report the outage on our power company’s app. We would eventually learn that a tree limb had fallen on a power line about a mile away and utility crews were reluctant to do anything about it in the 65mph winds. Power was finally restored about 13 hours later.

Snagging the flashlight from my nightstand drawer, I wandered out to the exceptionally dark living room and shined the light beam into our backyard. It looked like a burglar had ransacked our patio in search of treasures. Pillows, cushions, chairs, doormats, and firepits were scattered everywhere. 

Much to Rob’s bewilderment and frustration, I opened the patio door – which the wind then flung wider with gusto – and set about gathering up our décor. I dropped an armful of pillows and leaves inside near the kitchen and went searching for at least two more missing pillows. Conceding that everything else was too heavy for my back to manage, I came back inside fully awake and exfoliated by the wee-hours scavenger hunt.

Photo taken the next day after a little cleaning

As Rob and I stood in our dark living room, discussing whether the upended firepit might be broken, I noticed an orange glow about a mile south of us, down the hill. It was in the location of the bright white light and “POP!” I had noticed while fetching pillows.

The orange light flickered and its intensity changed as hundreds of tree limbs danced wildly between us. The orange glow then underlit smoke that was blowing in a straight line dead west. Straight towards so many trees and houses, at about 60 miles per hour.

“I see flames,” Rob reported as I remembered our cordless phone is useless in a power outage and located my cell phone.

“9-1-1. What is the address of your emergency?”

A simple, critical question for which I only had a vague answer.   

Our best guess of the coordinates ended up being nearly spot-on. I continue to be amazed by my husband’s sense of direction.

The nearest fire station was less than 2 miles away from the orange, glowing, smoking trees. We waited to hear sirens but they never sounded. Instead, we saw the orange light suddenly, gratefully disappear in an instant.

The fire was fortunately right next to the road
which I'm sure made it much easier to locate and put out

We didn’t sleep much the rest of the night. Nor did most of our neighbors, as we compared notes hours later when the power and neighborhood Facebook page surged back to life. At about 4:45am, another fire even closer had been reported. It was at the site of the tree limb on the powerline. Fortunately, crews were nearby, as our little microclimate was pretty much the only source of outages in the county. 

In the light of day and slooooowwwly decreasing winds, Rob recovered all of our pillows and cushions, some having made quite a valiant effort to escape our 5 acres and go on holiday. We discovered a storage bin and two chairs toppled in our front yard. Three plum trees along our driveway broke and will be replaced. Another pool floaty arrived, as did a large (empty) cardboard box. The grapevines in our front-yard vineyard now list westward, and some trellising repairs are imminent. And several trees fell, blocking a gravel road critical to garbage trucks. Not too bad all things considered; it could have been so much worse (see 9-1-1 call above).

We were enormously grateful to determine that despite some major brain farts, the only casualty to our pretty, new wine barrel firepit was a little rubber footpad for the glass wind shield. We realized that prior to the windstorm, we hadn’t put the propane tank back inside the barrel after refilling it, resulting in a rather top-heavy firepit. We also neglected to lock all 5 casters on the bottom, clearly underestimating the speed of wind that was heading our way. So without the extra weight of a propane tank and the protection of all 5 wheels locked in place, the wind attempted to roll out our barrel. We got super-duper lucky.

All put back together!

We spent most of Sunday afternoon cleaning up all the leaves and dirt and bark dust that were in unsanctioned locations. We had fun putting our leaf blower, tractor, and chain saw to use. While taking a break from repopulating the back patio, I smiled big as I watched neighbor menfolk gather on the gravel road in the front to clear the trees blocking it. There were five men, four chainsaws, and two large tractors on the job. At times they worked in concert, other times stood and problem-solved and bonded. The youngest man was a recently promoted firefighter who knowledgeably redirected the chainsaw cuts to fall a tree away from our fence. Thank you, Max!

I loved listening to the neighbors work together, even if it resulted in Rob declaring later that he now has Chainsaw Envy. I was reminded of the beauty of community, the benefit of knowing your neighbors, and the power of nature to bring people together in times of need.