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Wild Wind Returns
Feb. 24th, 2009 09:00 amI meant to write about this on Tuesday morning, but the paying job comes first, and by the end of the day I was too tired to do anything else, so I'm composing it later as a back-dated entry.]
Monday night, we had a smaller cousin to the big wind storms of the past Christmas/New Year blow up the North Santiam River. This time, at least, we were still awake (around 11 PM, as I recall) when it happened, instead of being awakened by the sound of a large tree branch falling perilously close to our front door. Our game of India Rails was interrupted by the roar of high wind gusts. It was strange how you could hear them before you felt them. After a few minutes of this and several gusts blowing through, the biggest one hit, and there was a loudTHUNK as several legs of the awning frame that covers our trailer pulled out of their cement block bases.
A photo of the trailer and its shelter may help explain what happened. The wind got underneath the shelter and pushed it up. The legs sit in concrete blocks, and some of the legs are tied to pieces of rebar driven into the ground. In this case, the ropes holding it down had gotten wet and stretched, and enough wind pushed things loose.
Lisa ran for the door, swung it open, and grabbed the pole nearest the door. I quickly got my boots and jacket on, then went outside and pulled down on the awning while she got dressed for working in the wind and rain as well. Fortunately, that big gust seems to have been the last. It started to rain pretty hard, but the wind slacked off considerably.
We pushed the dislodged poles back into their blocks, and Lisa went and found another length of light rope that she was able to throw completely over the top of the shelter and tie off at both ends to the rebar. However, this would have gone much better with more pieces of rebar, and we're out of them.
This was a relatively small storm compared to the holiday storm, but it does put more emphasis on getting more rope and stakes for the shelter. Lisa feels much better having the roof over the trailer to keep the rain off, and this past year she rebuilt the shelter with a more steeply-pitched roof to shed rain better. The drawback to the new roof is that it also has more surface area and is thus more susceptible to wind, and medium-large wind storms are something we can expect every winter here as the river valley narrows and funnels the wind toward us.
Monday night, we had a smaller cousin to the big wind storms of the past Christmas/New Year blow up the North Santiam River. This time, at least, we were still awake (around 11 PM, as I recall) when it happened, instead of being awakened by the sound of a large tree branch falling perilously close to our front door. Our game of India Rails was interrupted by the roar of high wind gusts. It was strange how you could hear them before you felt them. After a few minutes of this and several gusts blowing through, the biggest one hit, and there was a loud
A photo of the trailer and its shelter may help explain what happened. The wind got underneath the shelter and pushed it up. The legs sit in concrete blocks, and some of the legs are tied to pieces of rebar driven into the ground. In this case, the ropes holding it down had gotten wet and stretched, and enough wind pushed things loose.
Lisa ran for the door, swung it open, and grabbed the pole nearest the door. I quickly got my boots and jacket on, then went outside and pulled down on the awning while she got dressed for working in the wind and rain as well. Fortunately, that big gust seems to have been the last. It started to rain pretty hard, but the wind slacked off considerably.
We pushed the dislodged poles back into their blocks, and Lisa went and found another length of light rope that she was able to throw completely over the top of the shelter and tie off at both ends to the rebar. However, this would have gone much better with more pieces of rebar, and we're out of them.
This was a relatively small storm compared to the holiday storm, but it does put more emphasis on getting more rope and stakes for the shelter. Lisa feels much better having the roof over the trailer to keep the rain off, and this past year she rebuilt the shelter with a more steeply-pitched roof to shed rain better. The drawback to the new roof is that it also has more surface area and is thus more susceptible to wind, and medium-large wind storms are something we can expect every winter here as the river valley narrows and funnels the wind toward us.
