Wind, fallen trees - Self Rescue

Last night was very stormy with loud wind and some rain thrown in. The wind was throwing everything that was not secured down all around and needless to say, we did not get tons of sleep. This morning was not much better. So, my story starts with my neighbor and his rock wall.

Our neighbor came by this morning and we talking about how not much was going to get done today due to the holiday and many shops being closed. After a nice discussion, he went off to work on his rock wall. I am not sure exactly what happened, but I think a rock fell and broke a water line. On his way down our hill to get supplies to fix the water line, he runs across a tree that just fell and broke the power line to our hill.

So, the messages start coming in from our other neighbor and a "fix-it" party is formed. First objective is to clear the road and remove the tree. Rick says it was just like any rescue mission. 6 workers, 3 of them want to be chiefs and a total of 7 different plans on how to remove the tree.

The tree was bleeding sticky white sap. Which by the way, after it was all over, my husband had to bathe in oil to remove it from his hair and body.

There was even an effort to save the orchids from the tree. One of the wives on the hill is going to attempt to replant them, or at least that is the plan.

With chainsaws, machetes, an axe and a winch, the tree has been removed from the road. :)

I left before they finished cutting up all of the wood, but it was a quite a few hours of work.

With so many houses that had similar problems, the power company is no longer answering the phone. Eventually, we will get on the list to have them come repair the line, but we expect it to be a few days until they make it up here. It will not be a quick fix. :(  Thankfully, we all have back-up generators. The bad news, we just learned that the gas stations in town are not able to pump gas, because they too are out of power. So, we will use the generator sparingly until they can start restoring power around town and we can get more gas.

​Happy Monday!!!