The whole Pacific Northwest has an atmospheric river weather pattern than came through for a week. Lots of rain and really warm temperatures in the 50's. Certain parts of WA , OR, and ID had major flooding up to the rooftops. Mud slides, land slides, collapsed bridges. The following week we had a wind storm with hurricane force winds, the highest I saw recorded was in WY with gusts at 140 MPH, but in Northern ID our wind gusts were around 70 MPH. It hit right at 5am, which is when my alarm goes off to get the kids down to the bus, and by 6am I was notified that school was canceled. Downed trees were everywhere, both snapping in the middle or upper portions of the trunk, and also completely uprooted and toppled over. The atmospheric river with the recent rain and warm temperatures were just the right conditions to lose all these trees. Everywhere was without power and most roads were blocked due to downed trees.
Even though we lost power, we had our generator so we were just fine. I didn't come down the mountain for two days and when I did I was shocked to see this large ponderosa pine fell right on top of this neighbor's house! I was so shocked and instantly started crying. Then I felt guilty for not checking on neighbors for storm damage. Why didn't I check?? When I knocked on their door to check on them, it was my first time meeting her and what a lady. So pretty and so nice! She was working from home when the tree fell and was there by herself. She said it was terribly loud and even though there is significant damage to their home, nobody was injured.
A few days later I walked around our property to check out the damage - approximately 6 trees lost from being snapped at various points along the trunk, both live and dead trees. No trees uprooted. LOTS of broken limbs. No damage to any property so we will have a lot of clean up work to do when spring comes.
