The Great Wind Storm of '06

On Dec 14, 2006, Western Washington was hit by a record breaking wind storm.
The wind speeds surpassed the great Columbus Day Storm of 1962.
The near hurricane force storm took out trees and left millions of folks in the greater Puget Sound area
in the dark for many days . . . in some cases weeks.
(In Fed 2007 the storm was officially named "Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006")
  At Boulder Knoll we were fortunate. We recorded max winds of only 30 MPH on our weather station.

While double checking and tying things down, a branch hit a power transformer near us.
  A loud humm and a brilliant flash of light was followed by a loud snap and we were suddenly plunged into darkness.
Well, we really weren't really plunged into darkness.
  The City of Tacoma to the north and the City of Lakewood to the west had power and the loom of their lights against the clouds made it almost seem like moonlight.
With our generator humming we could sit back and watch TV until the lights came back on.
By noon the next day we had power restored.

 Around 2 AM we double checked the horses and heard loud banging from the hay barn.

The wind was catching the metal roof panels and was trying to tear them off.

All we could do was get the frightened horses out and wait for daylight to see the damage.
Hay Barn, West side.
 Hay Barn East side.




Because of the steepness of the roof (and that Dick and Kick were recovering from the flu and didn't feel like climbing up there) we thought it best to rent a man lift machine.

 The only drawback was that the machine had a built in safety switch.  If it was more than 3 deg from level, it quit and they had to restart it

You would not believe how small 3 deg is.
Kick, checking the damage.
 Kick trying to get the machine level.



The alarm went off almost every 5 to 10 min.

Sometimes just walking to one side of the basket was enough to set off the alarm.   Grrrrr.

Dick and Kick took turns in the basket, straightening, screwing and caulking and by 4 PM
the roof was back together.
Dick, setting 2 inch roofing screws. Dick on the way down