Catastrophe Sculpture

My neighborhood had a catastrophe back in January. The weather forecasts initially said there was a chance of bad weather. Then it was more likely. Then we should stock up on supplies and batteries. Finally, all the school districts in the Columbia Gorge, the Greater Portland metro area, and halfway down the valley announced they were closing by noon on Friday so busses, students, and staff could get home safely. All the news outlets broadcast repeatedly that a major storm was coming in, and, if in any way possible, people should get home and stay home. Work remotely if you could. Don’t go out for unnecessary travel.

If you live in the United States, you know which week this was. The majority of the country was under severe weather alerts as a massive Arctic cold front swept across nearly the entire continental U.S. We stocked up with groceries and supplies on Thursday night, pulled out our snow boots and warm clothes, and had very short days at school and work on Friday. Then we came home, settled in with the cats, set up the board games, made hot cocoa, and watched the temperature drop.

We weren’t particularly worried. We are privileged to have a secure income and could weather some missed work days if they happened. My husband has his own architecture firm and could easily work from home, so we knew that no one was going to have to be out in the storm. We could afford to stock up on food for a couple of weeks and we had plenty at home to amuse us.

Then, the wind kicked in. It grew, and grew, and grew. My husband and I grew up in dry parts of California where strong wind usually meant wildfire, so it made us twitchy. We both hate windstorms, but we also know that the geography of our region and our neighborhood means that they are a fixture in the winter. Our son was up with nightmares. He doesn’t like the wind either, and as his room shares a wall with the back of the house, he was woken repeatedly by things crashing around in the back yard. The storm still grew and grew and grew. By 1:30am, the storm was howling outside. By 8:00am, it was screaming. It would be another 24 hours before the wind was supposed to peak, and was expected to blow for at least three days. This was going to be unpleasant.

Wind is less scary in the daytime, at least to my mind. By morning, it was snowing hard, but the wind was so fierce that it all blew sideways. Almost nothing stuck to the streets or the yards or the houses. We were disappointed that we were having this big storm and were not even going to get proper, sparkly, scenic snow out of it, and my son was annoyed that it was not going to make for fun snowball fights and sledding at the neighborhood sledding hill. But, you know, c’est la vie. We were safe and warm and supplied, so we could keep one eye on the windows, trying to estimate the amount of snow that was not sticking and pretend we were not keeping one ear on the ever increasing wind.

We stayed in our pajamas through mid-morning, and my son and I amicably bickered about whether we should play board games or build with LEGO. Then suddenly, there was a knock at the door. My husband answered it, then suddenly shot outside with our neighbor from across the street. He did not take a jacket or his gloves. A few minutes later, he sprinted back and grabbed his outdoor gear, yelling, “That was Eric. He says the tree is coming down and we have got to go. You and Miles go to the back of the house. I want you as far from the front as you can get. The ground under the tree is heaving.” He slammed out of the house, and I stood frozen for just a moment.

“But…we can’t just leave! We have three cats! You and Miles have medications that you cannot miss! We need some time…”

I saw my next door neighbor’s car shoot out of our driveway and down the street. I jolted into action.

To be continued tomorrow…