Jaci Dawn

February 2021 is an analogy of the past few months in digest form. Broken, frozen, without power, unable to communicate, and yet not quite destroyed.

The 12th of February (coincidentally, Washington’s Birthday and the day our oldest grandchild turned 13, we were in for a winter storm. Snow! I love snow! But, typical of the Pacific Northwest, we had freezing rain first, then about half an inch of powdery snow, followed by two more surges of freezing rain. It was an epic ice storm, the worst since the late 1970’s to hit this area. Our power went out sometime during the night of the 12th, but that’s no big deal: we have hurricane lamps, a gas range, a gas water heater, candles. It’s never off for more than a day here in town (we did go through a big freeze in 1988 where we were without power for seven days, but we were in the middle of moving and could stay warm in the apartment we were leaving). Sometime in the 1990’s we suffered through five days of no power and no heat in a flimsy 1970’s singlewide trailer. All that to say, we have Been There, Done That and survived just fine. We had little kids those days and I am sure they loved every moment of darkness, hurricane lamps, and having to flush the toilet with rain water (we were on a well at the time). This time, we are in town.

A town that got almost two inches of ice on top of the bit of snow on top of the first coating of frozen precipitation.

I ran outside on the 13th to take photos of the ice storm. Artsy photos, pics of the rhododendrons leaning away from the house, the lilac hugging the earth, and the Camellia with her boughs bent to the earth and frozen.

Photos of yard art frozen and rhododendron blossoms encased in ice. I had no idea that there was another ice storm heading our way to add more layers of ice. sometime during the night, that leaning rhododendron toppled.

The night of the 14th, a branch on an old oak tree across the street dropped and snapped the power line and internet cable to our home. The power line ricocheted back to the tree, pulling off the meter on our house. We were without a land line or Internet. Fortunately, I was good on data on my cell phone (the phone my husband hates). I called the power company to report the downed line (dangerous situation even though no one had any electricity and would not have any for days). I put in a repair call to the internet/phone company, but they routed me through Omaha where the only power outages they knew about were in Texas where record freezing temperatures were causing rolling blackouts. Clackamas County, Oregon, didn’t exist in the greater psyche of News Outlets (including our own local ones). Texas was headlining.

The thaw began during the day of the 15th and continued through the 17th. Trees laden with ice dropped their branches on homes and cars. Basket ball sized pieces of ice slid off the fine needles of other trees and dashed anything below. Through the night and through the day, we could hear the loud BOOMS of trees and branches and power poles giving way to the melting ice and their heavy load. Transformers, feeder lines, substations suffered unimaginable damage. When it was all over, Much of Clackamas County looked like a tornado or a hurricane blew through.

We lost the main trunk of one lilac. The Camellia suffered horridly.

Fir boughs littered our yard, but the damage done was minimal to us (not our trees – thankfully, we have no trees)

We finally got electricity on the 20th through a miracle of God’s timing: Our electrician (doing a side job as a favor to a mutual friend, but licensed and bonded), arrived with all the parts necessary to replace the meter. The City of Oregon City was expediting permits and waiving fees. The City Inspector happened to drive by. The Montana crew of Linemen arrived as our electrician was finishing up. The Inspector returned with our approved permit just as the Linemen went to throw the switch. The Linemen circled back and turned our house on.

I did laundry in my own house that night.

We aren’t getting real excited about clearing away the debris. We’re both over 60 and arthritis bugs us. The lilac is not a loss nor is the other lilac and the vine maple. The Camellia remains to be seen – we will need to hard prune it back. The lowest branch that was damaged was 33 years old. The bush itself is older.

The rhododendron was also 33 years old where the lowest cut was made. We couldn’t stand it back up, but decided to let the stump lean away from the house and hope for new growth to come this summer.

We got our land line and Internet line repaired on March 3rd. Our original order was lost during the Texas storm and I had to arrange another work order. But it is done. We are beginning the healing process of our yard. We lost about $100 worth of refrigerated items (we had ordered a quarter of beef that was NOT delivered before the ice storm, thankfully). The electric repair was a mere $100 over our insurance deductible. We made no claim. Some people lived without power for 5 to 10 days longer than we did.

It was a one-two-three punch. I am philosophical, however. We were inconvenienced and frustrated (and a tad bit cold), but we have seen weather related damage here before: windstorms, 100-year floods, fires, ice storms, and even some epic snow storms.We survive. We repair. We go on. We mourn. We find humor in the darkest days.

We go on.