NW Storm Check-in

[jayne]

Hi Folks,

I don't know why I lucked out, but we got power back quickly last night. Reports are that 1.5 million in WA are out and about a million in OR. I would love to hear from Liz/Nootka (as I heard her area had 90 mph winds) and everyone else in OR and WA who was affected by the storm. Hope you're all OK!

Jayne

 

[Flyin G Farm]

I'm in Eatonville...we had high winds starting yesterday afternoon...and continuing through the night. We lost power about 5:30 last night and it's still out :no: I came into work today (much warmer here! LOL)...but on my way from what I could tell there were A LOT of down trees...big ones...and of course a million branches everywhere. My hubby called this morning and said other than things being tossed around we didn't have any damage, so I'm very thankful for that.

Hope everyone else is safe as well!

Tracy

 

[PaintedPromiseRanch]

:aktion033: glad to hear from you two :aktion033: , continued prayers for the rest in the area!!

:

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[susanne]

Hi Jayne,

I didn't see your post when I posted the same question!

We're like you -- our power went out for the afternoon and evening, but once we fed the horses and settled in, prepared for any length of outtage, the lighths came back on at midnight.

It was extremely nasty down in the lowlands of Columbia County and in Portland, but we were pretty sheltered up hehre by the surrounding hills and ridges. No fallen trees or branches, and only a couple of scary gusts.

I've sent Liz a PM, but I don't know if they have power or not.

Stay safe, everyone, and let us know if you need any help!

 

[mininik]

On the other side of the mountains...

Power was interrupted here for about 5 minutes and part of our fence got knocked down. I rescued a Cockatiel from our backyard that was soaked and freezing (it's cold enough for slushy snow to remain, covering the ground). It's still windy today and it looks like I'll be buying a bird cage...

I hope everyone to the West is okay!!

 

[nootka]

We are here, but barely. Here is what I posted to susanne in her pm:

"

borrowing a quick connection. We have NO power at our house, and probably won't for a few days. It is by far the worst we've had since '95, when we were out for three or four days. We bought a Honda 1000kw generator to protect our fridge and freezer and perhaps stave off some of the cold along w/our woodstove. W/that we can run tv and fridge for a time, it goes 7 hours or so on a half gal. of fuel I think.

Anyway, we had terrible windgusts and sometime in the early evening, a very LARGE tree fell just uphill of our barn (one of the spruce we left behind/that was on the neighbor's property), and luckily missed our barn as it was about four times the size of our little barn. Scared me and made me sick enough not to sleep well, though the horses were all secure and calm, we felt in was better than out. All are outside today while they can be.

There was 114 mph windgusts recorded down by Tillamook, and I know it was close to that around our place w/the magnitude of damage. We were trying to get home last night and managed to make it to within one mile of our house when we had to turn around and go the entire 20 miles back around the loop in the harshest part of the windstorm, dodging trees and power lines. Luckily the entire county was out of power so we felt fairly confident driving over the power lines also listening to the emergency crews on the scanner, knowing they had noted the lines and driven over them as well, even though it's dangerous to do in other conditions, there just wasn't any choice unless we wanted to stay in town, and our son was already at home, having gone earlier in the day.

That's about it for now. Martin's crab season has barely gotten underway, though they are scheduled to go take their second load out tomorrow and rescue the other gear which they set a week ago, and straighten it out from the storm damage.

I hope you guys are all fine.

"

We are somewhat isolate w/the trees and such blocking the roads, but the road crews and power co. are working hard to clear the roads, and we're able to beat a path to town in our truck around the limbs, on the back side, and I'm sure it will be clear by this afternoon, but NO power likely for a while. We were out for 30 hours last time, when it was just a quarter mile's worth of damage and this time, there is at least two miles worth of line on the ground and tangled up in trees w/large trees hanging by the power lines.

Now it's cold! Brrrr!

Liz

 

[Shari]

Just got power back...lost it 3:30 yesterday. Phone out for 5 hours today.

Lost the horse shed...twisted mess. Mini shed fixable. Can't get off the hill on the main road.

Lost most of the stuff in the Frig and freezer...wasn't impressed. Heard 7 trees go down last night but luckily did not hit anything important.

Even having hail and snow today.

Other than all of that everyone is all right....Though Dyfra is still staring at the shed like it is a horse eating demon.

And need to figure out how to pay for a new horse shed.

 

[ChrystalPaths]

MA called me and they are all ok. No power but the resevoir is full so there is water, they have the little woodstove going for heat. The 40' tree out front fell and scared poor Brianna but it hit nothing. Minis and folks are fine there but I do hope all others will be ok..so many haven't checked in yet.

 

[susanne]

Oh, Shari,

I was hoping you were a bit more sheltered, but now I remember that you are fairly exposed. I'm so glad nobody (hhuman or equine) was hurt!

Now it is snowing... and fairly cold. It's just barely sticking, but who knows what's to come.

U don't want to whine, though...we're experiencing minor inconveniences while others have real troubles.

Shari, Liz and everyone else, please take care! I hope the others who haven't checked in will do so soon.

 

[Shari]

Oh.. no... were are up in the Hills, Exposed to the Columbia River's wind tunnel effect.

Wind is picking up again so who knows how long the power will stay on.

:

Nothing this storm as thrown out was minor. Though limb arrows were impressive.... pulled some out of the ground that were stuck in 1' + down...and bouncing off the side of the house. :no: Glad I have concrete siding.

So you, your family and wee creatures are ok?

Glad to hear you and your family are safe and sound Liz....and to anyone else caught up in this storm!

Hope everyone is alright.

 

[sedeh]

Glad to hear everyone's doing okay so far. We had some wind/heavy rain but not as bad as Northern Oregon! Did lose power at the hospital yesterday......was interesting working with just the back-up generator. I think people thought we were closed....was so dark(or maybe they just were smart and stayed home due to the storm!). My parents were without power for a day but in Williams we were out on and off but briefly. Supposed to get cold this weekend!

 

[susanne]

Shari,

Are your big horses going to be okay without their shelter? I seem to recall you saying that Dyfra or Dustenai stay out even when it's cood... Can you make a tarp shelter to block the wind?

We're all okay here, so if you need any help tomorrow, let us know!

 

[Shari]

Dusty and Donkey always use the Shelter. Dyfra and Frey seem to like to stay out.

Not sure what to do, as we do tend to get some rather windy days...though Thank goodness...nothing like last night normally.

Most likely will have to take out a loan I can't really afford and get a 3 sided heavy metal car port for them.

But I want them to have something...even if they rarely use it.

:

It would be at least a week before I can get anything.

They do have their Rain sheets on so they have some protection.

Am very glad to hear you are doing OK at your place! :bgrin

 

[PaintedPromiseRanch]

ok here i go, eyes closed tight, teeth gritted, pushing our nice weather towards you as hard as i can!!! (wish i really could for all of you!!!) in the meantime, prayers keep coming your way that everyone makes it through this ok and it passes quickly!!

 

[susanne]

Shari,

Do you know what size blanket Ella would wear? If you think it would fit, she could borrow Mingus' 48" blanket. Your minis would swim in it, but would her donkey proportions fill it out a bit better? If you think it would fit, you're welcome to borrow it.

 

[CAM]

We are east of MiniV a bit and our power went out right after I left this morning. Fortunately, the electrician was already on his way because he was working on getting more power to the barn for the horse water heaters however, instead of that, he spent the entire day trying to figure out why we don't have power up to the house. All our neighbors have it and we have power at the hay barns near the entrance to our property but somewhere between the hay barns and the house we have lost power. I am sure glad I just had the propane tank filled two weeks ago to the tune of $1500 to run the generator!

:

The lights keep flickering and you can hear the generator working hard outside trying to keep us afloat. I only have the computer running, the fridge on, and a movie on for the kids. All else is off. It is cool in here but I have a fire going to help keep things warm. Trying to keep the draw on the generator to a minimum.

When I was driving into town today I went past MA's place (MiniV) and noticed within walking distance of her place, four trees down! I'm glad to hear they didn't suffer too many hardships during the storm. I know they closed the Hwy that goes by her property for a time last night due to the wind and trees going down. Glad you are ok MA!

 

[Shari]

Shari,

Do you know what size blanket Ella would wear? If you think it would fit, she could borrow Mingus' 48" blanket. Your minis would swim in it, but would her donkey proportions fill it out a bit better? If you think it would fit, you're welcome to borrow it.

Susanne,

That is soo sweet of you!

:

But I do have 3 medium blankets for Ella to wear, along with 3 waterproof rain sheets. So plenty of clothes for the horses.

What I would love to find is waterproof ear covers for her! :lol:

 

[hobbyhorse23]

I'm here. We actually made out remarkably well in this storm, which is surprising as my house is usually one of the first to lose power. I couldn't tell how bad things had gotten from inside my sound-proofed call center at work but we did lose power and have to use battery backups several times. When the evening shift came in they reported it was awful and the parking lot was flooded. I got outside and the parking lot did have standing water but no worse than usual given our bad drainage. It was barely sprinkling. I thought they were all nuts.

Then I got out to the main intersection a block away by the 405 onramp and caught sight of something with my peripheral vision. My brain absolutely could NOT make sense out of what it was seeing, it took me a full couple of seconds to realize that was a guy wading towards me up to his knees in water. From the onramp. Where his car was stalled out up to its headlights in water. :new_shocked: :new_shocked: I've never thought of that as a particularly sloped onramp and it's never even had a problem with standing water, but although it was completely dry ten feet in front of his car and not that bad twenty feet back, where he'd tried to go it was apparently deep enough to stall out his car. His passenger was waiting on the roof.

: I've never seen anything like it and did manage to snap a picture as I rolled by but it's on the other computer.

Power was out in major areas most of the rest of the way home but to my great surprise when I got to my street the lights were on. They flickered on and off the whole night but I don't think we ever lost power for more than a few minutes. We got the horses fed and barn cleaned early on and filled every available container both inside and out with water in case we lost power for several days but we were one of the lucky ones. Our neighbor showed up this morning asking if he could run an extension cord from our barn because apparently one of the giant booms that shook our house last night was a large tree branch falling on his transformer, catching fire and blowing out his lines. He's the only house on the street without power and is told by the power company that his will probably be out for days as he's only "cleanup." Poor guy.

I firmly believe we had a guardian angel's wings spread over our property last night because the only damage today is small branches down everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE! I've never seen so many branches down at once- it's like someone sprinkled them from a giant shaker can across every pasture, the yard, and the arena. But not one major branch came down where it could hurt anything; the house, barn, and even the fences were untouched. I didn't go outside to feel the full fury of the storm after it hit at about 11:30PM but it sure sounded impressive and the house continually shook with the booming of blowing transformers and falling trees. I've gone through a lot of windstorms and this is the first time I huddled in a chair and hoped nothing fell on me.

:

My aunt in the middle of downtown Bellevue (a major metropolitan area by NW standards) is without power and is told it will be three days before it is restored. She's lost hundreds of dollars worth of specialty foods she had in her freezer for the Christmas party she was holding tomorrow. Guess that's cancelled.

: Poor lady. We'd loan her our generator except we already gave it to the neighbor!

Hope everyone else is okay. I know many are still without power and can't check in yet.

Leia

 

[AppyLover2]

Had the TV on last evening watching the news about your horrific storms then came here and started reading about the wind damage, power outages, etc. I found myself wondering from how far away electrical crews would be coming. Five minutes later my daughter called and said SIL and his crew leave this morning for Oregon. Just a few weeks ago there were 7,000 workers in St. Louis so I would imagine you folks in the northeast will be absolutely innundated with work crews. It'll take time to get things back to normal, but help is on it's way from all over the country. In the meanwhile I'm sure a smile, a friendly wave, or maybe a hot cup of coffee would be appreciated.

Good luck to all of you!!

 

[CAM]

I put all three kids, the cat and one of the dogs in bed with me last night to stay warm. The battery went dead (?) on our generator twice last night in the middle of the night with an ear piercing shrill that fortunately, only woke me up. I know absolutely nothing about this stuff and this is a new house to us and of course, my husband was 4 hours away! There is solar here too but it could just as well be from the planet mars to me.

: I managed to get the battery working, or at least I like to think I am the one that did it,

: and the power came back on. Did that twice last night and the second time I started a fire because it was so cold and wanted it to be warm when the kids got up in the morning. I got about 1 1/2 hrs of sleep after the second time and woke to find the fire still kickin'. Yeah! :aktion033: It is warm in the livingroom so we will be staying put here. The electrician will be showing up soon to help fix the power issue we hope, and my husband is on his way with a steaming hot coffee since our kitchen is all torn apart for a remodel and we have intermittent power. Can't be all bad now can it?!

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