When the Woods Come to You, Version 2.0

On January 13, they came knocking on our walls and windows, and entered uninvited

12:41pm

Wind gusts around 60mph (as recorded by a neighbor’s equipment, but just above 40mph as recorded at PDX) coming from east/northeast, with below freezing temperatures. The Doug firs in Loll Woods were swaying wildly, and at 4-10s in the video, you see how much that one tree in the back was leaning.

And what those trees did, so did trees in our yards and parks all over Portland that day, and even more so as they were more exposed.

Around 12:50pm

Expecting snow, the tenant had left with her skis, so I went to the apartment to open all the cabinets so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. As I was doing that, I heard and felt this incredibly low frequency THUD, and I knew our 3 firs fell.

I came out of the over-the-garage apartment and this was the scene that greeted me as I stood on the landing. The tree now on the ground hit the exterior staircase at the base, so I was able to get out of the 2nd floor apartment. The stairs were a bit wobbly, but serviceable.

Three trees down, but it felt manageable. The two that hit the house crashed a window, but we thought we could tarp the window from inside and be ok.

Around 1:45pm

As we were tarping the window, a neighbor’s tree crashed through from the east side, demolishing both bathrooms and hallway.

At this point, I can not express what a lucky escape we had. Either one of us could’ve been in one the bathrooms, and it would have been fatal. In fact, my husband had moved his stuff away from the first crash site into the hallway, including his chair. He had been sitting there waiting for me to bring in the tarp and the two of us were putting it up.

---

Husbands, let this be a lesson to you all…help your wives when she needs help, your lives may depend on it!

It’s probably no coincidence that life rhymes with wife.

---

I have no memory of hearing this tree crashing through the house. I’m sure I heard it, I’m sure it was loud, I just do not recall at all. Probably just as well.

Bathroom #1

Bathroom #2

Now it was obvious that we had to leave. I collected our cat kennels and went searching for the cats. And that was when I discovered that the tree broke through the floor support, went into the basement, broke the waterline, and water was pouring into the basement.

I tried to pry open the water meter cover to shut off the water main, but it was frozen shut, so I did the next best thing and shut off the water at the first spot as it entered the house, and the husband shut off the electricity at the panel (we had lost electricity a few hours before that).

Back to searching for the cats. After some crawling around and peeking under things, I found the two of them huddled together in the closet behind some boxes. I unceremoniously grabbed them and stuffed them into their kennels, quickly packed up some clothes in my backpack, a few pet things, a bit of food, and we started packing the car.

The dog was in her usual hiding spot—under the counter in the laundry room where she’s usually sitting on top of a pile of her laundry when fireworks are going off—even though there’s now an inch of water. She was just standing there in the freezing water. I grabbed her and shoved her in the car too.

We thought we should take both cars, but the lock was frozen shut in the other car, and my husband looked at the remaining swaying trees with suspicion and we abandoned the idea.

Around 2:15pm

We had an invitation to stay with friends who had extra space and apparently no trees in their neighborhood; we took it.

The chickens never even came out of their coop that day—they said the sky was falling and it would be madness to go out—so I put a new bowl of warm water in their coop and scattered some food to get them through the night.

The two of us, our cats, and our dog slowly made our way in the icy road conditions, past Beaverton, to a relatively new development that sprung forth from what had been farmland not that many years ago.

Evening

Our lovely hosts fed us a delicious dinner, and their toddler entertained us (the pup was amazing with all this stress and the baby, she was golden; we kept the kitties in the bedroom we were in). The husband filed the insurance claim.

And we called it a day.

---

Addendum

I previously wrote When the Woods Come to You about wildfires and native trees that volunteer in our gardens. Another Master Gardener, Leah P, noted that this gave the phrase a whole new meaning, and I decided to follow that thread. Thanks, Leah, for the idea.