These are some pictures of the
damage caused by the
windstorm on Thursday December 4, 2003. We lost the below
hemlock, 2 slightly smaller firs,
and an 8 year old tree we planted near the house. All were
uprooted. A whole bunch of crappy, nearly dead alders, which
should have come down, stayed up. Go figure. North Bend had 65mph wind
gusts, possibly higher in some areas(like ours). Snoqualmie, a few miles away had a recorded gust of 95mph. Some people had roof and shingle damage.
The hemlock completely blocked
our driveway. We had lost power that
morning and knew it would still be out when we got home, so we had
dinner out. But we didn't expect this. We had to leave the cars in the
driveway overnight, and crawl on hands and knees with a flashlight
under the tree and between branches to get to the house. I stayed home
long enough before going to work the next morning until we had cut our
way out. Wendy stayed home for the day. Power finally came
back on 2:pm that Friday afternoon, after 33 hours without.
My boss came over on Sunday
with his car trailer and hauled out the
logs for me. He was going to use them to frame a shed, but decided they
were to big, so I offered them to his friend with the tractor who said
he'd take them. We had a small fire going all day long both
Saturday and Sunday, and we burned up 1/3 of the branches and debris.
It was wet so it was very smoky but still dried and burned quickly.
