Grand Forks Windstorm: Wednesday, Aug 8, 2001

Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 15:53:24 -0500 (CDT)
To: The Usual Suspects 
Subject: Mother Nature opens a big ol' can o' whoop-ass...

Greetings.
	As some of you have undoubtedly heard, Grand Forks got whooped
on last night.  Here's the sequence of events from my point of view:

	Sitting around, enjoying a lazy wedesday evening, rotting my
brain with TV and thinking of possibly doing something else.  There
are thunderstorms in the forecast, and a major cold front is moving
in, but nothing scary.  The front will bring lower temps to the
sweltering city and is quite welcome.  Around 9:15 pm, the sirens
start to wail.  I switch to the weather channel to see a severe 
thunderstorm warning scrolling across the bottom.  Mom comes in (she
and Dad are here for a few days) and wants to swap the cars around.
My old bronco II ('B2') is in the garage and her station wagon is out
in the weather.  As I head outside I happen to glance at the sky.  A
strange formation is headed our way.  It looks like a shelf cloud
(indicative of a gust front from a thunderstorm), but there is a clear
zone ahead of it like a shockwave.  It looks like it's moving very fast.
I check the lower scud clouds underneath it.  They are moving fast.
Very fast.  Impossibly fast.  I have never in my life seen a gust front
moving that fast, and it was headding right for us.  I shook myself
out of it and moved my truck.  Back in the house I switched on the
scanner and punched the button for the weather spotter freq.  The
GF Emergency Ops Center was just putting out a report: the air base had
just clocked straight-line winds of 101 miles per hour.  Mom, Dad, the
dog and I all headed for the basement.  I tuned another radio down there
to the spotters and ran around mashing all the 'off' buttons on my
computer power strips as the lights flickered.  I also unplugged my
modem and tv/vcr/stereo/dvd rack just as the power went out for good.
The radio was battery-powered and the spotters were not having fun.
It sounded like all hell was breaking loose upstairs as reports of
hail and rain and amazing wind came across the tinny speaker.  I got
out flashlights and was checking some windows when a great, shuddering
WHUMP! shook the house and caused dust to rain down from the ceiling.
"What the hell was that?!", I asked no one in particular.  Dad said
something about it probably being a tree falling on the house, but
the storm was still too intense to venture upstairs.  More reports
flooded in on the radio: street flooding, power lines down, trees and
debris blowing everywhere, rain, hail, everything but the Wicked Witch
of the West.
	In 15 minutes the storm had vented its rage on us and was
rolling on to pound the snot out of Crookstown.  Dad and I ventured
cautiously upstairs.  The first thing that greeted us when we opened
the basement door was the sweet, pleasent smell of pine, the sound of
dripping water, and the sight of shattered plaster all over the floor.
The source wasn't hard to find: a 50' spruce tree in the front yard had
snapped off and fallen on the house.  One branch had punched through
both the roof and the ceiling of the dining room, and was now dripping 
water like crazy on the rug.  To add to the surrealness of the scene,
the front had cleared and the sunset was streaming in all the windows.
We went outside to find the entire neighborhood blacked out.  All
three spruce trees in the front yard were broken in half.  The big one
had dropped on the house and made the new skylight.  Another part of it
had broken the chimney in half (and I later found out punched a smaller
hole in the roof).  The intermediate one had fallen on the front step
and crushed both the railings.  The smallest one just sat there, in
the way :).  Our big spruce in the back yard also broke in the middle,
but didn't hurt anything.  The same can't be said for our neighbor's
towering (70') spruce, which had also been topped, but had fallen on
the high-tension power lines in the alley.  This had ripped one power
pole down and snapped another in half.  No power tonight (or for a few
days, most likely).  Back in the front yard my taurus SHO had narrowly 
missed being crushed by a crab-apple tree that now blocked the road.  My
B2 was parked in the driveway, and was plastered with shredded leaves
but otherwise undamaged.  In fact, other than the roof and smoke stack
damage, the old homestead was in pretty good shape.  Our neighbors also
faired well, most of them having no damage at all other than broken
trees.  Others in town weren't as lucky: some buildings had roofs peeled
off, trailers were toppled, power lines down everywhere.  Amazingly,
other than a few bumps and bruises when cars got blown off the road,
no one was injured.  I give many thanks for that miracle.
	Today was a day of work.  First order of business was to make
the B2 earn its keep.  I hooked it to the smallest spruce tree and
pulled it out into the street.  So far so good.  Next, I used a ladder
to rig the large half (1/3?) of the big tree with a tow strap, and
hooked the other end to the new tow hooks I had installed this summer.
Dad sawed most of the branch that was inside the house off, and I
dropped the truck into 4 wheel low, put it in reverse, and tugged.
The big trunk mostly came off the house, then stuck.  I then provided
the neighbors an amusing show of spinning all four tires and skating 
the truck back and forth, squelling tires and all.  I then took to 
easing off and taking running starts, which would move the tree only
inches.  Finally one of the spectators went to his house and brought us
his chainsaw (mine is electric, quite bloody useless with no power,
thank you).  We cut branches and tugged, cut branches and tugged, and
finally got the big chunk off the house.  I was quite happy with the
little trucks performance, especially since both the tow hooks and 
strap were bought from JCWhitney.  So much for the easy part.
	The final part of the big tree was too far removed from the
ground to get a strap on, so someone had to climb on the roof.  Most
of you know just how much I enjoy climbing on sloped roofs (about as
much as a root canal), but since the parents aren't in any shape
to do it anymore, I got the job.  This time I rigged a rope over
the top, tied to a stump, so I could have a safety line.  This helped
imensely, but even so I spent the next four hours scrambling around the
roof, sawing branches and chunks off the tree and throwing them to
the ground.  Mom then produced some thick plastic cutting mats, and
I used them along with a tube of silicone caulk and many nails to
patch all the holes.  The chimney was a challenge.  I ended up just
pushing it back upright as much as possible, and wrapping it with 
plastic sheet and loads of duct tape.  No rain is in the forecast,
but at least if we get some the leakes will be minimized.
	Now I sit at work, typing with sore muscles, and trying not
to think about the damaged satellite dish on the roof of Odegard Hall
that I have to go fix sometime in the near future.  The U did pretty
well, not nearly as much damage as I had thought.  Even so, I've heard
there are about 3,000 trees down in Grand Forks.  Power crews are
being pulled in from the tri-state area to repair the grid, and the
National Guard will likely be activated to help with the cleanup.
At least the generators at the U worked properly and most of the
computers stayed running.  A few glitches are to be expected, but
no damage done.  My generator at home is thundering away, running the
fridge and freezer for a few hours each day until the mains get
repaired.  Even with the battery pack and inverter I built this fall,
the TV cable is still out, so portable radio is still our main news
source.  All in all, the town looks shaken, but not smashed.  Power
to some traffic lights is still out but most are running, and 
almost all the businesses are open.
	Yep, just another day at UND, the University of Natural
Disasters :).