Storms

 

I live on the Oregon coast. For part of the year, we have great weather. But part of the year we have storms. We generally don’t get the Summer and fall thunderstorms and tornadoes that the Midwest and southern states get. Our storms tend to be in late Fall and Winter. In recent decades the Weather Service has gotten better at predicting them, so we are usually not surprised. We are too far north to get hurricanes, but sometimes we get the remnant of hurricanes. We usually get a couple of storms a year with wind gusts over 70 MPH and once decade or so we will get a storm with gusts up to 100 MPH. That may not seem so bad for the folks who live in hurricane zones, but it’s enough for me.

The worst storm I ever lived through was one I don’t remember (I was 3 years-old at the time). It was called the Columbus Day Storm. This storm devastated parts of northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. It was possibly the worst storm ever to hit the region in the historical record. The storm began its life as Typhoon Freda in late September of 1962. The remnant of Freda slammed into the Pacific northwest on October 13^th. The highest recorded gust was 170 MPH, but there may have been higher ones. Some of the weather equipment and weather stations were damaged by the storm. Construction and vegetation on the coast and in the interior valleys were not built to withstand such winds. 10 to 15 billion board feet of timber were blown down. The power grid was severely damaged. Some people were without power for weeks afterward. There were 50 fatalities. It is the storm by which all others are measured in this region. Old-timers will be glad to tell you about the “Big Blow.” It has reached the status of legend. But one wonders when the next one will come.

I have lived through some big storms after moving back to Oregon, though nothing quite as big as that one in 1962. How the storms on the Oregon Coast are affected by climate change, I don’t know. There are still big storms that come in every year, though the rainfall has dropped over the past decade, leading to droughts.  Wildfires have become more destructive. The weather does seem more volatile, more extreme. Perhaps we will get another Columbus Day type soon. I would say that we are better prepared for it today than we were in 1962, but that does not mean we are ready.

There are some people who come to the coast specifically to watch the storms: storm tourists. We who live here have come to accept storms as the cost of living on our beautiful coast. We are willing to accept the risk. After all, risk is present wherever you live.

Star Liner