High winds

I was sitting in the city library when at around 4:30pm the power went out. A calm silence overcame the building as darkness replaced light. The coffee shop employees a few feet from me took the outage in stride.

“It looks like it’s in the entire building!” said one young man sweeping the floor.

When the power went out we also lost the internet, something I quickly discovered as the photographs I was working on downloading to my on-line photo album wouldn’t take and I kept getting the error message. I left to drive home by 5pm.

Wind gusts that had been building all afternoon were at their peak now. Policemen stood at all major street intersections and guided traffic through. A visible sandstorm sent reddish-brown sand in the distance, and the Mule Mountains near Bisbee were barely visible. Organized chaos was everywhere, but drivers were cooperative.

Tumbleweed and plastic bags flew across the highway as my van shook across the road like an old dilapidated aluminum shack in a windstorm. It was so windy I had to drive with three hands holding the steering wheel, and that was no easy task. I was actually a little nervous driving against the wind, always expecting something to blow into the highway that I couldn’t avoid.

The further south I drove the fiercer the gusts became. San Jose Peak was barely visible 20 miles away.

The closer I got to home the more relieved I was to be safely behind my walls. A large tree branch lay against our perimeter juniper on the street, and the California Palm tree in our front yard lost two dead fronds. Our neighbors Hen and Jen across the street lost their trash bin as it rumbled down the street; I recovered it for them, but our house and yard were OK. Italian cypress bent at near 45-degree angles. Stray leaves were everywhere.

Kevin was already home as I drove into the driveway. He had picked up a new refrigerator and was in the opened garage finishing untying the bulky load. He was visibly relieved that he was safely home. “I was barely driving 40mph and was afraid I wasn’t going to make it” he said, after we hugged.

The backyard was a mess, as expected. Kevin’s work bench had collapsed and wood beams were scattered near the corn. One of the tarps that I had laid down a few days ago to solarize part of the backyard was overturned and the unsecure ends flapping in the wind. One compost bins had fallen over, spilling the contents of dried cow manure and dried grass on the ground. Papers and plastic bags were caught in the north side of our perimeter fence. An Arby’s food container near one of my raised beds was filled with hungry ants attacking the former contents.

The foot-tall sweet corn was bent near the roots. Two more dead fronds lay in the backyard. One large tumbleweed huddled against our chain-link fence, adding up to more community trash that will fill our dumpster for the next trash pick-up. Picking up anything was futile as the winds kept bringing in more debris.

The one item standing strong in the winds ironically was a kitchen towel still attached to the clothes line.

The storm didn’t relent. The dogs seemed to enjoy the high winds, but our palm tree precariously swayed from side to side. Loose fronds were barely attached to the tree. Blinding dust blew in whirlwind fashion. A tarp across the alley blew into the air and got caught in our neighbor’s tree across the alleyway, the same neighbor whose roof was losing shingles.

The weather was the breaking news at 6pm. “The wind has caused a few traffic accidents” said the announcer, reporting 67mph gusts for our town, but there were no major pile-ups along any roads. The winds were the strongest I’ve experienced here, but Kevin said a storm about a year ago was much worse, sending a trampoline airborne and crashing into a house in town.

We sat outside on the porch watching the wind. The temperatures were already cooler than earlier in the day, a bit of a refreshing breeze for a change. This wind was the edge of a cold front moving in from northern Arizona, although the winds were predominantly from the west.

The dogs wanted to go for a walk when they saw me, but I didn’t want to risk getting hit by falling debris. We did, however, grab the dog comb and dragged the steel comb across the dogs’ bodies. Sammy loved the back massage as his thick grey fur flew in all directions around us. Sara’s fur was more dense and matted and just came off in clumps. The wind made at least brushing the dogs a little easier and more fun as the view resembled a high-powered fan blowing against us.

The wind never died down as evening came, although the wind advisory was forecasted until 9pm. I sat in the living room, on alert for any possible crashing sounds against the house, be it the palm tree or loose objects from other peoples’ yards. One mobile home in Ajo lost its roof from the storm, but no local accidents were reported at the 10pm news. (The big news at 10pm was the American Idol finalist, a 25-year-old bartender named David Cooke) Had we lost power at any time the experience could have been more “exciting,” but I was just grateful that our neighborhood was spared more serious damage.

The wind picked up again this morning. I surveyed the yards for any damage and saw only minor wreckage: besides dead leaves everywhere and bent corn stalks that should recover with vigorous growth, the one sad discovery was a dead thrasher near the palm tree. We have had a thrasher family living in our palm tree since we moved into this house, thrashers that fly down every morning looking for seeds I leave out for them and our other feathered friends like the finches, raven and Gambel’s Quail. This dead bird still had a light-blue egg attached to its abdomen; apparently the bird was in its nest protecting its eggs when it got blown from its little home it was trying valiantly to protect.

Mother Nature can be so cruel at times. The thrashers have been a delight to have around, from listening to their creative calls to neighborhood birds, especially after they see me put birdseed in the garden, to watching them bathe themselves in our blue kiddie pool in the backyard, the same kiddie pool that was originally meant for Sara to cool off in. That kiddie pool that started out as a doggie pond was quickly taken over by the big birds as their bird bath. I make sure there is fresh water in the pool every few days.

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2008/05/22/news/doc4835132a1f7f5841710069.txt