Posted by Susan Fischer on 12/5/07 12:49am
Msg #224354
God, I love electricity.
(The power was such a joy to come home to after a lengthy signing at a tiny restaurant table - while Mr and Mrs had lunch, leisurely telling stories, and dashing off signatures every once in a while. Over 12,000 of us were (and some still are) without power, and the radio station was again our lifeline.)
And the folks from Tillamook to Astoria are hard hit - battling the slowly subsiding Trask and Wilson rivers. FEMA has proven fairly heartless in the past, according to many borrowers' astonishing stories.
But the wildlife went, well, wild. You know It's Here when the seagulls are flying backwards. And as the wind escalated in longer and stronger gusts, even those big, strong birds finally had to give it up and head for cover.
By Monday, the Pacific was a 40-foot sea, measured from the bottom of a trough to the top of the crest, and all you could see was furiouswater, crashing and hurling at you from the rising horizon.
The Clipper Ship Coffee Shop had their usual (delicious) camp coffee drive-thru, and Sambo's just last month installed a generator system, and its welcoming Christmas lights were the only color along the highway. Roger's radio station, KBCH, lost transmission, but KYTE put him on the air because Roger understands the function of local radio; and admonished the clueless, speed-talking DeeJay that right now, "is not about the music, it's about the people and the human voice - a voice with news and information." We all said an Amen.
It was a big blow to miss the webconference, so I need to print off the powerpont, and catch up.
Since the fiber optic cable was severed over in Sheriden, the phones were toast. No cells anywhere until about 2 PM Sun, and that was Cingular (yay for me this time around), so several folks in town brought their cells to KBCH so people could come to the station and call out to freinds and love ones (no Santa lists, just news). Meals on Wheels was down, so Roger got that group effort started, and, well, the stories go on. As I said last storm, Lincoln City may not have electricity, but we've got power.
I digress. While waiting for Roger's next report, I noticed four intrepid little Coots, small black ducks with a pinch of white on their heads, surfing the foot-tall waves of the lake, their little webbed feet paddling madly up one side, disappearing momentarily to slide down the other - upupup up, wheee! all day long. Every once in a while they'd dive, like sinking stones, for a nibble, then pop up to climb another whitecap. Wildlife teenagers?
On Monday, with the wind gusting like punches, out my window a lichen clung with its hairy fingers to the sleeping, writhing limbs; its sage green a glorious color in the gray afternoon. It's done, no single leaf left to admit victory over Autumn's letting-go. Not one single remnant of busy Spring.
It's so quiet tonight.
|
and more saturday and sunday. My signing tonight has already warned me about their driveway saying they will come out and walk me in. The first storm on Saturday layed a nice foundation of ice. The farmers are happy though because it starts the moisture into the soil for spring.