A Community Effort

About 2:20 PM this afternoon high winds toppled a clump of fir trees in the 2500 block of Rocky Point Road blocking the road and knocking out power briefly for the second time today. By chance I was returning home from a bike ride just after the trees went down. With a couple of chainsaws, a big pickup truck, and the efforts of about a dozen of us, the road was open for traffic in about 15 minutes. When I returned later with my camera, the only evidence of the big crash (see photo) was a pile of branches and a man loading some free firewood. As one of the chainsaw operators, he was welcome to it.

Most of western Washington has been under a high wind advisory today with gusts of up to 60 mph forecast for the coast. Tonight the local TV stations will respond with coverage of big waves, downed trees, and other evidence of the storm. There won’t be any footage from Rocky Point though as we were too fast for any newshounds looking for wind damage. Our community effort even beat the fire department. The last few branches were being dragged off the road just as a red ladder truck from the Westgate station showed up. The number of cars backed up in both directions by the short delay surprised me. But the wait could have been a lot longer.