On December 14-15, 2006 Western Washington state experienced a severe windstorm, with sustained winds of 30 to 40 MPH and gusts of 50-60 MPH. A personal weather station a couple of miles away from us recorded winds in excess of 50 MPH during this storm. For us, power went out at 8:10 PM Thursday, Dec. 14 and came back on around 1:00 PM Friday, Dec. 22.
We were very fortunate in this storm. The cedar tree in the pictures below and several trees down by our stream (not pictured) were all that fell, and no buildings were damaged. Throughout the storm, Douglas-fir tree branches of the sizes shown in the pictures below were banging into the side of the house, the garage doors, and skittering (OK, thumping) across the roof. Luckily, all of these branches hit "broadside" rather then end first.
The cedar tree fell shortly after 2 AM on Friday Dec. 15. I know this because our dog, Georgia, had to go outside at about 2 AM to take care of some business. She then decided not to come back in, so I had to fetch her. A few minutes after we were all back in the house there was a loud noise from the front of the house. Most of the breaking noises up to this point had been coming from behind the house down by the stream. I went to the front door to see if I could see what had happened, but the flashlight didn't shine far enough to see. At about 4 AM the winds began to subside, and I went to bed
In the morning Susan and I went out to survey the damage. That's when most of the pictures were taken.
Click a picture to see the bigger version.
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View from the front of the house toward the road. A 60-70 (?) foot tall cedar tree that fell is visible in the distance. |  |
Closer view of the Cedar tree that fell and the stump. |
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Another view down the trunk of the cedar tree. |  |
A view from our road looking back toward the house from the top of the fallen cedar tree. You can also see a smaller, broken Douglas-fir tree. |
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View walking down our road. The branch is approximately 20 feet long and has a diameter of over 4 inches at the big end. |  |
More debris in our road,. |
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Still more debris in the road and some of the neighbors. |  |
A look down the side road into our neighborhood. Lying across the road, and the power lines, is an alder tree with a diameter of 3.5 feet to 4 feet. The top is in the neighbors hard and looks like it just exploded! |
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Neighbors, our dogs, and us walking to the end of our private road to see the main road. |  |
View to the left on the main road from our road. |
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View to the right on the main road from our road. Continuing out to the right there were many trees that fell into the power lines for several miles. |  |
Another view of the fallen cedar tree taken later in the day.. |
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Another view of the fallen cedar from the top of the tree taken later in the day.. |  |
Another view of the cedar from the side taken later in the day.. |
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Another view of the cedar from the end taken later in the day. |  |
A view from near the fallen cedar tree looking back toward the house. The large branch is over 20 feet long and 4 inches at the big end. |
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View of the large alder tree across the side road from our neighbors yard. The tree appears to have just exploded! It took two days of sawing and chipping to make a dent in the clean up. |  |
The caterpillar we saw before the winter began. |
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This is Georgia thinking about her next move... |  |
This is georgia in her regal, "I'm surveying my domain" pose. |