Storm in Oregon 2012: Power Outage & A Morning Spent With Seaside Fire Department

This has been a crazy morning! A big storm hit the Oregon coast last night with winds reaching close to 100 mph. The wind is still howling as I write this, and we just got power back after it was out for most of the morning. The video above was taken outside my front door about 2 hours ago – pretty windy!

When the power went out, I used my battery backup to connect to the Internet and send emails to clients before my laptop battery died. I then switched to my phone and was able to take care of a few things before the battery backup ran out and cut power to the Internet. Jai and I then got into the car and headed over to Grandma’s to check on her and see if we could find any wifi in the area so that I could get back to work. This was what we saw when we pulled up:

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The upper window in Grandma’s house was damaged and the local fire department were there to secure it. During the last big storm in 2007 when we had hurricane force winds, the entire window had gotten sucked out. This time both the glass AND windowframe got sucked out by the wind and were only being held in place because they got caught on the curtains, which a neighbor noticed when she saw part of the curtain hanging outside the window. This is a large window on the upper floor of the house and would pose a hazard once the window fell out, so the neighbors drove down to the fire department to get help since the phones weren’t working.

When we arrived, there were six firemen securing the a large tarp on the inside of the house so that if/when the window and frame fall out today, the wind, rain and glass will be kept on the outside. The firemen then went outside and got on a ladder in the howling wind to nail boards over the window to secure it as best as possible until the storm passes and a repairman can be brought out. Grandma wants to write a letter to the local paper to commend these awesome firemen for helping her. They were so nice and even stopped to wipe their boots before they came in her house!

While we were there, the power came back on, so now I’m back at home so that I can hopefully get some work done; Jai is with Grandma at the moment in case anything else comes up, like the rest of the window blowing out. The wind is supposed to continue until 4 PM this afternoon and my power/Internet is flickering occasionally, so this may affect what content I’ll be able to publish today – thanks for bearing with me! We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled content once this storm passes!