Tim-BERRRRRR!!!

As you may have noticed, I haven't been posting the past couple of days.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the Cascade foothills east of Seattle got hit with a massive windstorm. While high winds are common here in wintertime, this went well beyond anything I've seen in ten years there. Steady winds of 30-40 M.P.H., with gusts measured up to 80, lasting for a full day.

And here's the result:



Yes, that is a hundred-foot-tall (or maybe we should now say hundred-foot-long ;-) ) Douglas Fir, whose trunk has just missed our house by, at most, four feet. Although the trunk missed, the branches caused a lot of damage (in case you can't tell by the gutter lying in the foreground), which (along with the fact that power is still off to our neighborhood after nearly 48 hours) is why we're now living at the nearest Holiday Inn, and why I expect to be spending a lot of time with insurance adjusters and contractors for the next few weeks/months/years.

Anyway, if you want to see more pictures, check out http://www.eskimo.com/~jwalley/timber/ .

Good aftermath: Our house made it on the evening news that night. :thumbsup:

Bad aftermath: It was on the local Fox channel. :thumbsdown:

Sorry to hear about the damage. The worst is yet to come: insurance adjusters and contractors. My parents have spent the last year dealing with similar damage from a tornado that toppled twenty trees in their yard, six onto the house itself.

Glad no one was hurt.

Thank goodness it missed the house.....just imagine.....

:scared:

:hi:
DemEx

So very sorry about the hassle, but glad that nobody was hurt.

Hang in there with all the red tape --

...after we moved here ten years ago, I was worried about that particular tree. However, after a decade, I figured it had endured enough heavy winds that it was unlikely to come down with anything we had around here. Guess I was wrong.

The tarp I have over my boat even survived. The Fire Department evacuated you? That's wild!

The Inaguration Day storm 10 years ago did a lot of damage in the neighborhood where I lived with my first wife.

If you need a contractor, pm me; that's what I do for a living.