Ben and his young daughter had a rough ride on the ferry. Winds were 25 knots and building. On the way home to Friday Harbor, thankful to be off the bouncing ferry, they were just about to turn left onto Spring street. In front was the huge elm tree lit with thousands of holiday lights. His daughter had just commented how beautiful they were. Just then they blinked once. And went out. Dark. As was the entire town.
Unknown to them at the time, at the very moment they were admiring the lights, a tree had taken out the power lines on the Roleau Road, some 9 miles away. The power to the Roche Harbor substation had been severed serving the entire northern part of San Juan Island. For reasons that were, according to Bob Belcher of Olpaco, not understood even several days later, the power outage cascaded back towards town and even took out Lopez Island for a while. “It’s not supposed to work that way” Bob said.
The wind was building that Tuesday night. The Fraser River Valley in British Columbia serves as a funnel when low pressures are positioned off the Washington coast. Air flows from high pressure areas to lows and on this winter evening there was a high above the Canadian plains and a low parked off the Washington coast. Perfect set up for a classic Fraser River blast. They don’t happen often and the wind, combined with the cold, made for an impressive winter storm on the lonely northeast shores of San Juan Island.
Mom doesn’t like the wind. Especially the Fraser River winds. She’s right in their path and when they hit, they hit hard.
The house dryer wasn’t working and she bundled up taking her laundry to the guest cabin dryer. In the howling wind she watched in awe as waves dashed against the point protecting what was locally known as ‘Kosin’s cove’. Igor Kosin, an immigrant from Vladivostok Russia, had built a small cabin above the point in the the late 50’s. The waves pounded the point, spray shooting high into the air. Rare for these waters.
Back in the house, Mom decided to sleep down stairs. A fir tree, over 100 feet high with a 7 foot trunk in diameter grew on the bank. Directly in line with the wind. The arborist had deemed it a strong tree in good shape, but if it fell, it could hit the house.
Her decision to go downstairs coincided with Ben and his daughter getting off the ferry. When the tree fell on Roleau Road, the house went dark. The auxiliary fireplace upstairs wasn’t working, so in addition to no light, she had no heat. Considering her options, she went downstairs to bed to wait out the storm.
We don't know how strong the wind was that night. 50? 60? Later Ben said from his place it sounded like a freight train. His house shook and he thought some of the gusts may have hit 70.
At some point during the storm, she heard a loud “thump”. Perhaps something had hit the deck. In the darkness she couldn’t be sure. It could have been at that very moment the mysterious duck met his demise, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Morning finally arrived and mercifully the power was on. All seemed to be normal.
Coffee was made, and she waited for Chris to arrive. Chris was putting the final touches on the new dryer installation. As usual, any new appliance doesn’t quite fit and the dryer it replaced was a rare side vent requiring some engineering for the new dryer.
There was a knock at the door. Chris at arrived. With news. “Have you looked outside?” was his opening comment. Mom hadn’t looked outside. She hadn’t noticed that a fir tree, over 100 feet tall, and growing right next to the guest cabin had fallen. Taking with it a very proud cedar tree. The Fir’s root ball was huge. Some 12 feet in diameter. Perhaps ‘plate’ would be a better description of how the roots spread out from the trunk.
When the tree went over, it could have up ended the small guest cabin. It didn’t. It could have fallen on the main cabin, crushing the guest cabin. It didn’t. The roots could have damaged the septic tank. They didn’t. The tree could have taken the half century old tree house. It didn’t. So tall, it could have damaged the work shop, but when it fell, it took with it a stockier cedar tree that cushioned the drop. The tip slapped the workshop with no damage. A professional tree cutter couldn’t have dropped it any better than the wind. Dad, did you have something to do with that?
The only thing the tree did when it fell was to stress the power lines. They held, but the power pole didn’t. It leaned over under the weight pressing on the lines. The power to the cabins held. Amazing.
The was one casualty. A frozen duck was found just to the side of where the tree fell. What was it doing in a tree at the height of the storm? It was intact, but had a wound on it’s side. Damage from the tree? Perhaps an eagle had gotten to it earlier?
The only damage to the house came from the wind itself. A few roofing tiles were in the yard. The roof, just over 20 years old, was showing its age and had lost a few tiles in the wind. It was slowly delaminating, adding to the summer’s list of things to fix.
I got up to the island one day later. Mom had mobilized a few folks to check the tree out as well as the nearly downed power lines. I caught the 6:20am boat and was at the house for sunrise just shy of 8am Thursday morning.
Chris was the first to arrive, with the final (final) touches to the vent. After announcing he had to return to town for a couple of screws, I introduced him to the workshop. Finding appropriate screws in the workshop is usually easy. It was.
The crew from Opalco was next and took the power line from under the tree and replaced it over the tree. Once the tree was taken out, they would have to come back and straighten the power pole.
Then the guys arrived to fix the fireplace. Finally. A part had been ordered, lost, ordered again but used on a different job, and now, two months later, was finally being fixed. They couldn’t quite get it all to work, but with the pilot light lit, the fireplace was functioning. Their van, however wasn’t. It had died the previous day and needed a jump. The company owner arrived in his truck, but didn’t have cables. A van and a big truck both without jumper cables. We had a couple of sets hanging in the workshop.
Casey arrived to take a look at the tree, but quickly determined his skill set wasn’t really needed — it was more of a clean up job. Mom called Ben who roared out and assessed what it’d take to clean the mess up. Then Buzz arrived to checkout the Cedar tree. There may be good wood in there to re-use.
It ended up being a full day. I raked and cleaned up the debris in the parking area. After all the comings and goings, the day slowly wound down. I prepared two manhattans as mom got salmon burgers ready. A good day.
The following morning I went to take sunrise pictures of the downed tree. I tried to get a shot of the downed duck, but the frozen carcass was gone. Carried away by a fox perhaps? An Eagle? The demise of the duck was as mysterious as its departure.
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