We wanted to go to Kelowna to celebrate a couple of birthdays, but storms with high winds shut down the ferry system, leaving many people waiting in long lines, hoping the winds would subside. We at least had the choice of coming home to wait out the storm, in comfort without power.
High winds mean high probability of power outage. The score at the end of the day was BC Hydro "1" Stormy Winds "3". When the winds are so strong they blow over trees, which bring down the power lines. Most days BC Hydro wins... but today the Stormy Winds won.
So we entertained ourselves taking a few pictures of winds that gusted up to 100 mph.
We were amazed how resilient most of the branches were to withstand the pressure of the wind and not break off.
From 600 feet above sea level it is hard to show the depth of these waves using a telephoto lens... but there were lots of whitecaps.
We went for a walk down the hill to check for fallen trees across power lines, and in the midst of the storm Shirley found some beauty in our neighbours driveway..JPG)
You can tell I had reached the bottom of the barrel if you saw all the photos I took in my office of raindrops on the window. Since I couldn't use my computer very much, it was a really horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.
I had saved a little battery so I could check emails before going to bed. It was after 10 PM when the power finally came back on. Equilibrium had been restored to our part of the world.
I ordered pizza by candlelight the other day in Cannon Beach. I was so impressed that the pizza place was running on generators, I just wanted to support them! All the power was going to the pizza ovens, though. Everything else was by candlelight...
ReplyDeleteJust judging from the pictures I think the people who managed to get on a ferry and subsequently got their vehicles thoroughly bathed in saltwater will likely regret that trip as long as they own the vehicle. You can do all the washing you like, even after we've been parked near the ocean I can see the effects of the salt spray long afterwards. I can't imagine what the effects of a complete salt bath would be like to live with. We've got a bad squeak in the suspension of the Ford right now that I attribute to our time on the coast north of Ventura last Dec.
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