The windstorm on Friday - updated

That story is describing us--we're the "outlying areas". We didn't have it as bad as Sooke, but it was still bad--trees on houses and cars, no power, not much fun.

We knew it was coming--I had about a half hour before heading off to my daughter's school choir concert to run around the yard and pack up anything that might blow away.

Still, when we got home, there wasn't any wind, and we wondered if we'd fallen for a false alarm. By around midnight, we realized that wasn't the case. The power went out a little after 12:30. The gusts kept pounding the house, and when I heard a new noise around 3 a.m. I knew there was a problem. I discovered a ten-foot length of siding was loose and flapping in the wind--kind of shredded, and the potential was the whole side of the house could lose its siding.














So there I was, snakelight wrapped around my neck, on a stepladder with hail coming down and winds around 110 kmh (70 mph) blowing the vinyl siding at my face. It was much fun trying to hammer it into place, trust me, and the picture shows we'll have to get that replaced somehow--but at least that stopped it from getting worse.

The next morning showed the extent of the damage, and since I'd had no sleep at all, I called in sick. My kids didn't have any school--their district shut them all down--but my school had power. Even if I hadn't felt like death warmed over, I had no desire to leave my kids home alone with no electricity--and I don't want them making fires when no adults are there.

Later that morning a friend of my daughter's who had electricity invited her over, and when I drove the half mile or so to their place I saw this tree down:











They live across the fence from the house where the classic cars were destroyed in the news story at the top of this post.

We got power back around 1 that afternoon, but many people had theirs out much longer. I bother trying to make it downtown for my staff christmas party--there's 20 bucks I'd rather write off than try to drive home after a couple drinks and about 2 hours sleep in the previous 36.

The winds around our place probably didn't get much over that 110 kmh level, but out at Sooke, they had an hour of 150 kmh--which is about 94 mph, with gusts by the water of 175 (110mph).

Essentially, a hurricane. The record rainfall in November, and more the last few weeks, meant that the ground was saturated and a lot of big trees came down.

Thankfully, both yesterday and today the weather was pretty nice.

One week of shopping left, kids--hope that's the biggest worry between now and Christmas Day...