Sunday, December 02, 2007

"Breaking" news

For years, when we'd drive to the Oregon coast, we'd pass a sign on Highway 26 marking a turnoff to see "the largest Sitka Spruce tree in the US." We'd always say, "we oughta stop and see that sometime." Several months ago when we went over to the coast with Beth and her husband, Ed, we actually stopped to see the big tree.

I just saw, on the news, that today the strong winds that are battering the coast broke the 700 year old tree in half. End of a very long era. I'm glad we stopped to see it when we did.

click photo for news story


They've been warning us about this storm for days now and so far—knock on wood—it's not too bad here. Lots of rain, some wind, a little flooding in some areas. It's the kind of storm we really dread here, though. The combination of lots of rain and wind means trees will start coming down. The ground gets saturated, the roots don't hold and when the wind gets going big old trees just start popping out of the ground. 99% of the time I love our big old trees. But every so often they worry me. I wonder, as I wander off to bed, whether one will come crashing through the ceiling and land on our bed while we're sleeping. So, uhhh, here I go—off to bed. I'll let you know how it turns out.

3 comments:

  1. Here's hoping your trees are in one piece (we do the same thing when we get really bad ice storms like the one last weekend -- lots of branches down and some that are cracked in half like the one you've shown).

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  2. I hope you have a safe night, with no tree entering your bedroom uninvited. That must be scary. Personally, I hate to hear the wind blowing.

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  3. I live in the Portland area and I was sad to hear that the big Sitka Spruce had toppled. We used to live in Astoria and that was often our stopping-and-stretching place when we came to the valley to see Grandma and Grandpa. The highway department will have to change all the signs now. We sure did have a storm, didn't we. We prepared for power outages last night - did all the right things, unplugged, etc. - and woke this morning with everything intact. We live in a secure place, high enough that water won't be an issue unless we have another Noah's Ark! ~Adrienne~

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