🚀 go-pugleaf

That Guy wrote:
> 
> Well, it appears that some trees fell in the high
> wind last night and took out some power lines.  Does
> anyone know how widespread the outage is?

There were many outages in many areas, and given the speed of Usenet
it's probably not your best bet for timely information (especially from
people whose power is out!).

The TV news said 89,000 people, a radio report said 5,000 people in the
Bay Area (which must have been wrong since there were at least that many
people in the local area PG&E reported as out in the SLV and Scotts
Valley).

PG&E's number is 1-800-PGE-5000 (800-743-5000); voice mail option "3"
takes you to a local outage recording.  KSCO (1080 am) has decent local
coverage during commute times, but sucks the rest of the day for news
unless there's a truly major disaster.  KGO (740am) is all news, but
more SF focused unless again there's a major disaster.  KGO at least
reported that damn tree on 17; KSCO had already switched over to Rush
Limbaugh and heaven forbid they should interrupt Rush to tell anybody
anything important.

-Dan Veditz

adrian@bbs.cruzio.com (That Guy) wrote:

>Well, it appears that some trees fell in the high 
>wind last night and took out some power lines.  Does
>anyone know how widespread the outage is?

My power was out from about 9:30 til about 10:30 or 11am.  PG&E told
me about 3500 folks in this immediate area were out (Im at the south
end of Graham Hill Road, just outside of santa cruz).  She also said
that there were outages all OVER the place, Berkeley, many other
places.

>On a related note, I understand Highway 17 commuters
>had fun this morning as a large tree fell across all
>four lanes near the old Santa's Village exit (now 
>Borland, natch).

Third (?) time this year 17's gotten blocked right around there, I
think.

-jrp
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In article <3313AC79.1C1C@cruzio.com>, George <bygeorge@cruzio.com> writes:
> 
> My power was out until ~5:00 P.M. today Tuesday. Up off Two Bar in
> Boulder Creek.  Redwood branches everywhere UPS gave me the good news
> that my driveway was about the worst branch covered road he had seen.
> But he does not drive up here -- always beeps his horn and walks.   
> That was Monday about noon and I had already cleared the big branches
> out in the morning so my sweetie could get out for work.  In fact I was
> wearing a hard hat every time I went outside on Sunday night and Monday
> morning.  There was so much stuff falling all the time it was nuts.
> Did anybody get a good nights sleep Sunday night?

In almost 15 years, this was the worst wind that *I* had experienced,
up here.  Usually, in strong winds, the redwoods have seemed to keep
the winds up, away from my house.  This time, the winds found a way
to swoop right down, as if I was being targeted by them.

We had a branch about as big around as my thigh (not *that* impressive,
but still ...) hit our roof.  It must have had lots of other branches
slow its decent, otherwise we woulda had a skylight installed.

I noticed something in the winds.  I could see the tall redwoods, off 
in the distance, bending dramatically in the winds.  I saw that the
firs were hardly moving at all.  Similar heigths.  Same winds.  This
gives me the impression that the firs are more likley than the
redwoods to go over in a wind.  They both seem to have similar size
roots, but the redwoods deal with the wind by bending.  The firs
tend to transmit all of the forces directly to the roots and act
like *huge* levers.

Nope -- I didn't sleep well, Sunday night at all!  Silly, though --
it's not like, if I were awake, I coulda made it out in time or
something.  

Do not underestimate your abilities.  That is your boss's job.
It is your job to find ways around your boss's roadblocks.
_______________________________________________________________
Glen Appleby  glena@bbs.cruzio.com  http://www2.cruzio.com/~glena/

glena@bbs.cruzio.com wrote:
> 
> In article <3313AC79.1C1C@cruzio.com>, George <bygeorge@cruzio.com> writes:
> >
> In almost 15 years, this was the worst wind that *I* had experienced,
> up here.  Usually, in strong winds, the redwoods have seemed to keep
> the winds up, away from my house.  This time, the winds found a way
> to swoop right down, as if I was being targeted by them.
Those were some mean gusts.  Much worse that the ones that put a redwood
right in the middle of my old Chevy II wagon some 14 years ago. 
> We had a branch about as big around as my thigh (not *that* impressive,
> but still ...) hit our roof.  It must have had lots of other branches
> slow its decent, otherwise we woulda had a skylight installed.
> 
> I noticed something in the winds.  I could see the tall redwoods, off
> in the distance, bending dramatically in the winds.  I saw that the
> firs were hardly moving at all.  Similar heigths.  Same winds.  This
> gives me the impression that the firs are more likley than the
> redwoods to go over in a wind.  They both seem to have similar size
> roots, but the redwoods deal with the wind by bending.  The firs
> tend to transmit all of the forces directly to the roots and act
> like *huge* levers.
It was those 3 big firs with in striking distance that worried me
the most on Sunday/Monday.  Any one of them would of cut this place
in half.  Not to mention the 15-20 Redwoods that would do it in. 
> Nope -- I didn't sleep well, Sunday night at all!  Silly, though --
> it's not like, if I were awake, I coulda made it out in time or
> something.
The noise was what got us we had to go sleep downstairs.  Tried upstairs
then something real big hit the roof and we bailed downstairs pronto.

George

Michael Bender wrote:
> 
> George (bygeorge@cruzio.com) wrote:
> 
> : Did anybody get a good nights sleep Sunday night?
> 
> Not me.
> 
> mike
> 
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Michael Bender                                        bender@eng.sun.com
>   Sun Microsystems, Inc.                                Tel: 415-786-6279
>   14 Network Circle                                     FAX: 415-786-6447
>   Willow Rd. at Bayfront Expwy
>   Menlo Park, Ca. 94025
>   Mailstop: MPk14-207
>    <HTML><H1><BLINK>Don't read USENET with Netscape!</BLINK></H1></HTML>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A good night's sleep ? The pager went off at midnight and then again at
2 for
wires down. No big deal. Starting about 5 it seemed to go off
continuously until
about 10 when it slowed down a bit. There was only one injury reported
to us
where a gentleman fell down the stairs while dodging falling branches.
His house
is on a ridge top and there was MUCH more wind on top.

As far as firs vs redwoods... firs have shallow root systems and pull
out easily.
I don't believe I saw any redwoods down (except those that the firs
knocked down)
but there were lots of places I didn't get to. I was going to take a
vacation day
to deal with a dying transmission but I didn't expect to spend it
chacing downed 
trees/branches and downed wires.

There was damage in Brookedale, as seen in the paper and on TV, on
Nellie Ln., on
Hoot Owl, and Briar. All firs. There may have been others but I'm doing
this from
memory. Lots of other trees down but the damage was from firs.

Just out of curiosity, do the Boulder Creek readers of this forum read
the newsletters
and plea for money sent out by the Fire Dept. or are they round filed
without even 
looking ?
-- 
Dave Scruggs - Firefighter, EMT1-A           - SMTS III	
Boulder Creek Fire Department                GTE Government Systems 
Boulder Creek CA                             Mountain View Ca

In article <E64wIA.1wE@cruzio.com>, adrian@bbs.cruzio.com (That Guy) writes:
> 
> On a related note, I understand Highway 17 commuters
> had fun this morning as a large tree fell across all
> four lanes near the old Santa's Village exit (now 
> Borland, natch).

AND a single "well placed" tree took out a couple of places on 9 in
Brookdale.  I understand that nobody was home at the time.

Do not underestimate your abilities.  That is your boss's job.
It is your job to find ways around your boss's roadblocks.
_______________________________________________________________
Glen Appleby  glena@bbs.cruzio.com  http://www2.cruzio.com/~glena/

j.r. pierce [see .sig] wrote:
> 
> adrian@bbs.cruzio.com (That Guy) wrote:
> 
> >Well, it appears that some trees fell in the high
> >wind last night and took out some power lines.  Does
> >anyone know how widespread the outage is?
> 
> My power was out from about 9:30 til about 10:30 or 11am.  PG&E told
> me about 3500 folks in this immediate area were out (Im at the south
> end of Graham Hill Road, just outside of santa cruz).  She also said
> that there were outages all OVER the place, Berkeley, many other
> places.

My power was out until ~5:00 P.M. today Tuesday. Up off Two Bar in
Boulder Creek.  Redwood branches everywhere UPS gave me the good news
that my driveway was about the worst branch covered road he had seen.
But he does not drive up here -- always beeps his horn and walks.   
That was Monday about noon and I had already cleared the big branches
out in the morning so my sweetie could get out for work.  In fact I was
wearing a hard hat every time I went outside on Sunday night and Monday
morning.  There was so much stuff falling all the time it was nuts.
Did anybody get a good nights sleep Sunday night?

George

George (bygeorge@cruzio.com) wrote:

: Did anybody get a good nights sleep Sunday night?

Not me.

mike

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Michael Bender					bender@eng.sun.com
  Sun Microsystems, Inc.				Tel: 415-786-6279
  14 Network Circle					FAX: 415-786-6447
  Willow Rd. at Bayfront Expwy
  Menlo Park, Ca. 94025
  Mailstop: MPk14-207
   <HTML><H1><BLINK>Don't read USENET with Netscape!</BLINK></H1></HTML>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 26 Feb 1997 21:50:47 GMT, glena@bbs.cruzio.com wrote:

>Prior to the quake, our bedroom was upstairs.  The day after the quake,
>somebody insisted that it be moved downstairs.

Prior to the quake, our bedroom was upstairs.  That night, we moved it
into a tent in the back yard.

We have since moved back upstairs.

-
Steve Premo 
Santa Cruz, California 
     http://www2.cruzio.com/~premo/steve.html

David Scruggs (David.Scruggs@GSC.GTE.Com) wrote:

: Just out of curiosity, do the Boulder Creek readers of this forum read the
: newsletters and plea for money sent out by the Fire Dept. or are they round
: filed without even looking ?

We send money every year.

mike

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Michael Bender					bender@eng.sun.com
  Sun Microsystems, Inc.				Tel: 415-786-6279
  14 Network Circle					FAX: 415-786-6447
  Willow Rd. at Bayfront Expwy
  Menlo Park, Ca. 94025
  Mailstop: MPk14-207
   <HTML><H1><BLINK>Don't read USENET with Netscape!</BLINK></H1></HTML>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <3314db59.1051868@news.cruzio.com>, premo@mail.cruzio.com (Steve Premo) writes:
> On Wed, 26 Feb 1997 21:50:47 GMT, glena@bbs.cruzio.com wrote:
> 
> >Prior to the quake, our bedroom was upstairs.  The day after the quake,
> >somebody insisted that it be moved downstairs.
> 
> Prior to the quake, our bedroom was upstairs.  That night, we moved it
> into a tent in the back yard.
> 
> We have since moved back upstairs.

The tent in the back yard wouldn't have been very comforting during the
winds, would it.

Do not underestimate your abilities.  That is your boss's job.
It is your job to find ways around your boss's roadblocks.
_______________________________________________________________
Glen Appleby  glena@bbs.cruzio.com  http://www2.cruzio.com/~glena/

My power was out till Tuesday morning (near the Mountain store) and
likewise, 
my road and all has more debris on it than I have ever seen. 

Local toll: One house roof holed (2-3"), two garage roofs wrecked (they
were dead 
anyway), and one skylight smashed.

Nothing really, compared to those who lost their homes.

Gary

George <bygeorge@cruzio.com> wrote in article <3313AC79.1C1C@cruzio.com>...
> j.r. pierce [see .sig] wrote:
> > 
> > adrian@bbs.cruzio.com (That Guy) wrote:
> > 
> > >Well, it appears that some trees fell in the high
> > >wind last night and took out some power lines.  Does
> > >anyone know how widespread the outage is?
> > 
> > My power was out from about 9:30 til about 10:30 or 11am.  PG&E told
> > me about 3500 folks in this immediate area were out (Im at the south
> > end of Graham Hill Road, just outside of santa cruz).  She also said
> > that there were outages all OVER the place, Berkeley, many other
> > places.
> 
> My power was out until ~5:00 P.M. today Tuesday. Up off Two Bar in
> Boulder Creek.  Redwood branches everywhere UPS gave me the good news
> that my driveway was about the worst branch covered road he had seen.
> But he does not drive up here -- always beeps his horn and walks.   
> That was Monday about noon and I had already cleared the big branches
> out in the morning so my sweetie could get out for work.  In fact I was
> wearing a hard hat every time I went outside on Sunday night and Monday
> morning.  There was so much stuff falling all the time it was nuts.
> Did anybody get a good nights sleep Sunday night?
> 
> George
> 

In article <01bc24e1$1b485ce0$565de3a5@mbay86.cruzio.com>, "Gary Starkweather" <gstark@cruzio.com> writes:
> My power was out till Tuesday morning (near the Mountain store) and
> likewise, 

I was going to be quite smug and talk about how my generator kept running
through the whole thing.  Then the darned thing quit on me.  Had to pull
out the baby-backup generator and coax it to run again.  Now I'm only
semi-smug.  Had to get all greasy to do it.

> my road and all has more debris on it than I have ever seen. 

I thought that somebody had *paved*!  YIKES!

> Nothing really, compared to those who lost their homes.

The homes aren't lost at all!  They are right where they were left.
This was a wind storm -- not an earthquake.  OK, so a few places
gained an unasked for skylight.

Do not underestimate your abilities.  That is your boss's job.
It is your job to find ways around your boss's roadblocks.
_______________________________________________________________
Glen Appleby  glena@bbs.cruzio.com  http://www2.cruzio.com/~glena/

glena@bbs.cruzio.com wrote:
...
> I noticed something in the winds.  I could see the tall redwoods, off
> in the distance, bending dramatically in the winds.  I saw that the
> firs were hardly moving at all.  Similar heigths.  Same winds.  This
> gives me the impression that the firs are more likley than the
> redwoods to go over in a wind.  They both seem to have similar size
> roots, but the redwoods deal with the wind by bending.  The firs
> tend to transmit all of the forces directly to the roots and act
> like *huge* levers.
...

     I have noticed the same thing in previous years, and I was losing
two to four 100 to 150 foot firs every year (snapping off at the
roots, close to the trunk), so this past summer I had a timber harvest
and now I have almost no firs (but almost all of the redwoods).  By 
clearing out the shadowing firs, the harvest left some of the redwoods
looking like 100 foot tall whips (although they are now branching out
again), so they swayed quite a bit in the wind, but none were damaged. 
My forester said that redwoods eventually catch up to and out-compete
the firs after a clearcut. (My area was clearcut about 100 years ago.)  

     I am much happier without any firs in striking distance of the
house.  Having them around when the forest is transitioning to a
mature redwood forest is like playing Russian roulette, since most
of them are likely to fall rather sooner than later.