There are no flowery pictures here this week. Nor is there a picture of Rhody. I know that everyone loves Rhody. Also, I had been trying to include something flowery as everyone else does. Instead, I got only pictures of damage that was caused by very strong wind that blew through here on Monday night and Tuesday. I missed it while at my other work, but now have a major mess to contend with. Redwoods are very big and very messy, even without wind. With wind, they are very dangerous too. No one can remember stronger wind here.

1. Electricity sometimes gets disabled prior to strong wind. This wind storm disabled the electricity first. Debris such as this needed to be removed before the electrical service was restored.

2. Decayed dead trees blow down easily, even without much drag. They are not as heavy as viable trees, but are not as flexible either. A few stubs of broken limbs perforated this lodge roof.

3. Stairway to photinia was too silly to not get a picture of. The photinia looks as if it had always been there. I certainly did not expect it to fall over. We took the necessary steps to remove it.

4. Redwoods are hundreds of feet tall. Even small limbs that fall from such heights come down with significant momentum. This limb punctured the roof and this plywood porch ceiling below.

5. Several limbs such as this perforated this same roof. Abundant other debris was raked and blown off before these limbs could be removed, and the roof could be patched. Rain is expected.

6. This roof, as well as the house below it, got the worst sort of damage when this big fir came down. Sadly, this is not the only home that was destroyed by falling trees. Several cars died too.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

27 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: Ill Wind”

  1. Gosh – Christop was a bad storm. We didn’t have anything like the damage you have in the pictures although it did storm through. I hope things don’t take too long to put right.

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    1. Storms in other regions are actually much worse and winder. Ours seem to be very bad by our standards. What makes them so destructive and dangerous is the very big trees. When a twenty foot tall tree falls down, it can only reach whatever is within twenty fee of it, and it does not way much. When a three hundred foot tall tree falls down, it can reach three hundred feet away, and weight many tons. Small bits of limbs that weigh only a few pounds gain a lot of momentum while falling hundreds of feet.

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    1. So far, I know of no one who was hurt in the neighborhood. The family in the house that was destroyed by the fir had been at home, but left only minutes before the tree fell.

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  4. My gosh. That last photo is pretty darned dramatic, although the limbs that punctured the roof are attention-getting, too. It looks like things often do here after a hurricane, and from what you said, you must have had hurricane force winds.

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    1. Not quite. Although the wind was very strong by our standards, it was not nearly as strong as winds of a hurricane. In fact, such winds might be considered to be average in other regions. What makes them so dangerous is the size of the trees. Debris falling from such heights comes down with major momentum. Tall trees weigh many tons, and reach farther away than shorter trees.

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    1. Even a light duty ice storm would be VERY devastating here. Redwoods are not designed to support weight. Those that live with snow are only slightly sturdier, and only because they grow up with it. (The native range of coastal redwood is very limited to coastal regions, where snow occurs only in high elevations. Redwoods do not venture far into such elevations. Snow is rare near the Summit here.) Ice storms, although perhaps less damaging to infrastructure, must be more damaging to gardens and trees.

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    1. Yes, it was wickedly windy. However, wicked wind by local standards might be comparable to normal wind in other climates. The problem is the size of the trees. They are just SO very heavy, and drop debris from SO very high up.

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    1. Redwoods are awesome. Many of the buildings here were built within a few decades after the region was harvested for timber. The regenerating redwoods were still young, and not so big. The hazards associated with such massive trees was not considered back then. Ideally, buildings would not be under the redwoods, but at a bit of a distance. I enjoy being here, just a short distance from the same massive redwoods, but far enough from them that they can not drop anything on the roof.

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    1. You probably heard of how we joke about tall they are.
      They grow fast too, which is why the Moon has so many craters.
      Some trees collect kites. Redwood collect satellites.
      I could deliver firewood to Reno, just by aiming a redwood in that direction when I cut it down.
      If you look this way, you can see what I mean!

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    1. My home is safe from falling trees and debris. I believe that the building across the road is safe as well, although there are firs and pines behind it. Beyond that, it gets messy! We just got a warning of another severe storm that will arrive just after noon tomorrow. It could be the worst since 1982.

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  14. Pingback: Six on Saturday: After (And Before) The Storm – Tony Tomeo

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