Writer's Workshop: Wind Power

Originally posted on my WordPress site

This week, I am following the prompt: "Write a blog post inspired by the word: power."

Having lived in New England for my whole life, I am not a stranger to the power of the wind. Nor'easters, hurricanes, and thunderstorms are all pretty common, and just a regular day of living by the ocean can be pretty windy. It's usually not much of a problem, and can even be beneficial - for instance, when providing a great site for an offshore wind farm. But lately, things have been a bit out of control.

Oct 27, 2021

On the Tuesday night / Wednesday morning before Halloween, we experienced a strong Nor'easter. We had driven up to Providence on Tuesday night to see Alton Brown (excellent show; I highly recommend) and while there was some rain, the wind wasn't too bad. The clouds started to clear up, so we figured most of the storm had missed us. We were wrong!

I woke up on Wednesday to a sound like a freight train. I warned my boyfriend that he probably shouldn't go walk the dog "when the wind is so loud," but he went anyway. I fell back to sleep and then woke again to the sound of the phone. It was the school calling, saying that they were canceling. Next, I heard a loud gust, followed by a very loud crack, followed by a smash.

I looked out to the backyard but saw nothing. I heard the front door open and went running downstairs. I took one look out the door and groaned. There was part of an 80-foot pine tree down, on both of our cars.

Two Crushed Cars

Our insurance company was great, hooking me up with a rental car within hours. Our neighbors came out and helped us clear the tree (no small task). We ended up doing this most of the day, as we couldn't work without power. There was glass everywhere; such a mess! My car ended up being totaled, while my boyfriend's needed about $3,000 worth of work. In this market, we were very lucky to find a similarly sized vehicle within our price range, and in the area, so we bought it while waiting for the insurance payout. I'm also lucky to have great credit, I guess. But honestly, I was just so thankful that everyone was OK and inside when this happened.

The Damage - Totaled!

Nov 13, 2021

Fast forward a few weeks. My mother was getting ready to go on vacation and needed to use my printer, so we planned to have her come over later that night. My boyfriend and I went to a football game that afternoon and watched as some dark clouds started rolling in, very quickly, at the end. Once we were home, we took the dog for a quick walk, having heard warnings of some severe thunderstorms coming into the area. My car was in the garage this time, and we parked my boyfriend's car as far away from the trees as we could. Halfway through the walk, we had to bail as the lightning started, then the rain. It was about 15 minutes before my mother was supposed to come over, so I texted her to see if she wanted to come before the storm started to get too bad. She did.

When she arrived at our house, the rain had gotten torrential and the wind was really picking up. We fiddled with the printer, having some issues so not getting things printed as quickly as we would have liked. The rain started to get really loud (I found out later that this was actually hail) and I suggested to my mother that she stay until it was over. Our lights flickered, and my boyfriend received a tornado warning on his phone, but besides some wind, rain, and thunder, things seemed to be OK and the storm was over very quickly. My mom headed home to finish packing.

A few minutes later, she texted me. Her power was out, there were trees down everywhere on her street (she told me later that she had to drive on people's lawns to get back home), and there were all kinds of rescue vehicles coming into the neighborhood and the street across from the main road. The next day, the National Weather Service confirmed that there had been an EF0 tornado. Several large trees were down; houses, a pool, and some cars bore the brunt of them. One house caught on fire due to the downed tree. Several telephone poles were snapped in half. Most of the neighborhood didn't have power until late on Sunday. Some miracles: No one was hurt. The tornado came close to two main roads but didn't seem to go over either one of them. There were no road accidents. It came close to a restaurant but lifted right before. Everyone in the house fire got out.

Tornado Damage

I've been hearing stories about how people were out in restaurants that night and everyone's phone started going off with the tornado warnings; totally crazy! I cannot believe that it went through my childhood neighborhood (and the one I was living in until a year ago). I have always been a bit of a weather geek, getting the hurricane tracking sheets every season from my local grocery store and obsessed with reading about the tornados of "far away states." I never thought one would get that close.

Beware the Trees

I talked to a guy from the NWS in Boston (again, nerd alert) because we had questioned if the trees down before Halloween were also due to a tornado (mine wasn't the only one in the area), but he said he didn't notice any signs of rotation in that storm but that winds did get up to 80-90mph. I know for a fact that winds that strong can topple a tree because that happened just last year (Aug 4, 2020, in the old neighborhood). After Hurricane Isaias (by then a tropical storm) passed quickly through, the winds were still very strong in its wake. I had been working in my office all day and got up at one point to catch, out of the corner of my eye, the tree outside swaying. I thought the amount of the sway was exaggerated by the refraction of my glasses so I didn't think too much of it, but every time there was a big gust, I looked outside. At another point, I was coming back into the room and saw the tree sway again. I pulled out my phone and went to the window to get a video, but that never happened. I watched as the tree came right toward me and ran to the other side of the room! It had completely uprooted and partially landed on my house. Luckily, the window did not break and there was minimal damage to my roof. I also had to get the gutters replaced.

The Trees Could All Use a Hug

I guess we're getting to a point in our town where our trees are too old and too big. These three storms are only a few of many that we've had recently in which several big trees have come down. Last week, we decided to take some of the pines down in our yard (technically our neighbor's yard, with permission), starting with the ones closest to the house and driveway. I love those big old trees, but there's only so much damage we can take. I'll just have to appreciate them more when I'm out taking a hike. It's a great time to become an arborist around here.