We got no snow today, as a storm front moved through Portland this morning.
Portland got some snow, but mainly it got gusty freezing wind and ice. I don't think the temps exceeded 26 degrees up there all day. The snow in some areas produced the usual car wrecks and slide off the road events, that make watching such videos sort of fun, if you aren't the one who slid off the road.
Tonight they may get more snow but its the freezing rain that will extend down the valley that will cause the issues. The usual trees taken out, when they're too heavy with ice, and power lines downed for same reason.
Where I live is right on the line. We may or may not get the ice storm.
We have ice, that's for sure, right now. The cat yard wire has been stiff and heavy with ice most of the day. I thought it might be too much for it, and it would fall, but so far its held. Won't make any bets on tonight though, if more freezing rain comes.
It's nice and cozy inside the house so I haven't left but once today. I wanted to start the car, in this cold, in case the battery isn't holding up. I did not think it would start. The car made a coughing sound when I turned the ignition. But then the engine caught fire and roared to life. I drove it about ten minutes to get it charging, should have run it a bit longer probably.
A lady who was after a stray cat, for Monday's clinic, which is the clinic that was supposed to happen today but was postponed til Monday due to the weather, caught him last night. Gosh darn. So I said to bring him on over, that I would hold him til Monday. He was in a massive trap and very unhappy. I put him into one of mine and in front of the bathroom heat vent where he has been sleeping since he came here about three hours ago. He's pretty, buff orange, and seems tame to me.
I'll transfer him into a holding cage when he wakes up. He's very very sleepy.
My friend in town here sent me a video made by a man who also lost his cabin up by Breitenbush in the Santiam Canyon Fire last summer. She and her husband lost theirs, two cabins from his. They went up a few days ago for the first time, since the Forest Service is going to clear debris from where the cabins had been and wanted their owners, who lease the land under the cabins from the Forest Service, to get out anything left they wanted. There was nothing left but a metal table and chairs, Alice said. The fire melted to nothing even their heavy iron pans.
Here's his video.
Fire is devastating.
ReplyDeleteWe went to a National Park which was hit hard by our fires last year. Slightly over a year later there has been 'some' regeneration but the damage is very obvious. And the death toll in the animals is much slower to heal. If it can.
I pass these forests, harvested for various reason, when I go to the coast clinic, through the coast range. One states, by proud sign, it was replanted in 2008. The trees are barely ten feet tall, 12 years after replanting. Takes a very very long time for a forest to grow back, after disaster or clearcutting. I don't know what became of most of the Santiam Canyon wildlife in that horrendous fire last summer. I would guess most perished, it swept through so fast. The animal populations will take a long long time to recover.
DeleteIt is common enough here to see just a chimney remaining after a home has been burnt. The ice on the chicken wire is amazing and there would be some weight in it for sure.
ReplyDeleteThe first chimney he showed was from the former cabin of my friends. The chimneys, all had wood heat, all that remain of the cabins there. I think there were seven of them in all. Alice took me up there once, to show it to me, on a day trip. It was so peaceful and beautiful. This morning, half of Salem 25 miles north of me, is without power and under an inch of ice from freezing rain. My friend in Brooks, just north of Salem, listened to trees pop and fall, from the ice all night, eventually taking a power line out.
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