- Mar 14, 2004
- 2,632
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Yes...happy new years, everybody! And sorry about this long post, but I'm so fucking excited 
I slept throught the new year celebrations because we had no power for 24 hours.
We pretty much had category 1 hurricaine winds (75-105 mph), and I was caught right in the eye of the storm on the way to work (around 9:45am on saturday).
I was so freaking scared. First, my car was being pushed around (I was afraid it would tip over), Then I noticed the fields were completely flooded (hrm?), several cypress trees had snapped vertically in half, then a few billboards had crumpled over...It was like something from a movie because there were these flying V's of birds trying to get back to the ocean, but they were being blown all over the place.
Then I noticed the bay was jumping the right side of the highway! AGH!
Just as I called work on my cell phone, a bunch of caltrans, highway patrol, ambulances, and sherriff vehicles were forcing the southbound traffic to turn back..I found out later that the highway was completely underwater futher down, and several of the huge eucalyptus trees had fallen over the road.
So I had to follow the traffic and take a backroad. I had NO clue as to where I was going. There was junk all over the road (mostly from those damn cypress trees), and when I got to the end (by Sunny Brae), I came across a downed telephone pole and cables were all over the road (arrrgh). I stopped and put my emergency blinkers on, and this dumbass van passed me and drove right over them. He had to stop because there was a huge cottenwood tree covering the road...so I couldn't go home that way.
I had to drive back out on the highway, but It was a safe stretch...thank god. Justin was working in Eureka, and I was wondering how the hell he would get home.
THe power was out when I got home, and all of my fish tanks were out. So I had to manually agitate the water to keep oxygen in there (none of them died during all of this..surprisingly).
After the storm passed, I wandered over to my uncles house, and we drove around to do a "damage assessment." I have never seen so many trees uprooted in a storm like that...they were everywhere! Cypress trees appeared to be plucked out of the ground, and several trees had fallen on houses.
Most businesses had shut down due to the outage in arcata, but half of Eureka's grid was still running. We went to Target (to buy cheap candles), and the whole store was dark (except for a few lights)..people were still shopping for crap (like clothes)..wtf?? There were security guards everywhere, too, because theft was high.
We wandered over to an outdoor store, because my uncle needed to buy oil for his lantern, and apparently one guy had bought all of the lanterns and ALL of the oil refills..
We went to Longs and Safeway, and they were out, too. There were two trucks outside of safeway, both of which were stacked high with blocks of ice...and there were two more flats of ice inside the store waiting for them. In short, people were acting like this was the end of days..I am being completely serious.
All of the water in the Arcata safeway had been bought...and apparently many people were without water in there homes...
Due to the many floods and slides around this area, Arcata, Eureka, and all of the other towns here are basically isolated. None of the safeway of gas trucks can get here to restock the businesses.
Arcata was pitch black at night, and the police had their hands full. Theft was high because businesses had no alarms..and it was dark. I actually passed a vandalized car..the windows were broken, and I think it was partially stripped. I was told not to drive down the backstreets because there had already been several attacks on people in cars. The madness!
Anyway, we got our power back on yesterday (sometime in the afternoon).
But this was INTENSE! I'm not sure if anyone died..
I've never experienced something like this...and I bet everyone in tornado country is laughing at me right now :>
I slept throught the new year celebrations because we had no power for 24 hours.
We pretty much had category 1 hurricaine winds (75-105 mph), and I was caught right in the eye of the storm on the way to work (around 9:45am on saturday).
I was so freaking scared. First, my car was being pushed around (I was afraid it would tip over), Then I noticed the fields were completely flooded (hrm?), several cypress trees had snapped vertically in half, then a few billboards had crumpled over...It was like something from a movie because there were these flying V's of birds trying to get back to the ocean, but they were being blown all over the place.
Then I noticed the bay was jumping the right side of the highway! AGH!
Just as I called work on my cell phone, a bunch of caltrans, highway patrol, ambulances, and sherriff vehicles were forcing the southbound traffic to turn back..I found out later that the highway was completely underwater futher down, and several of the huge eucalyptus trees had fallen over the road.
So I had to follow the traffic and take a backroad. I had NO clue as to where I was going. There was junk all over the road (mostly from those damn cypress trees), and when I got to the end (by Sunny Brae), I came across a downed telephone pole and cables were all over the road (arrrgh). I stopped and put my emergency blinkers on, and this dumbass van passed me and drove right over them. He had to stop because there was a huge cottenwood tree covering the road...so I couldn't go home that way.
I had to drive back out on the highway, but It was a safe stretch...thank god. Justin was working in Eureka, and I was wondering how the hell he would get home.
THe power was out when I got home, and all of my fish tanks were out. So I had to manually agitate the water to keep oxygen in there (none of them died during all of this..surprisingly).
After the storm passed, I wandered over to my uncles house, and we drove around to do a "damage assessment." I have never seen so many trees uprooted in a storm like that...they were everywhere! Cypress trees appeared to be plucked out of the ground, and several trees had fallen on houses.
Most businesses had shut down due to the outage in arcata, but half of Eureka's grid was still running. We went to Target (to buy cheap candles), and the whole store was dark (except for a few lights)..people were still shopping for crap (like clothes)..wtf?? There were security guards everywhere, too, because theft was high.
We wandered over to an outdoor store, because my uncle needed to buy oil for his lantern, and apparently one guy had bought all of the lanterns and ALL of the oil refills..
We went to Longs and Safeway, and they were out, too. There were two trucks outside of safeway, both of which were stacked high with blocks of ice...and there were two more flats of ice inside the store waiting for them. In short, people were acting like this was the end of days..I am being completely serious.
All of the water in the Arcata safeway had been bought...and apparently many people were without water in there homes...
Due to the many floods and slides around this area, Arcata, Eureka, and all of the other towns here are basically isolated. None of the safeway of gas trucks can get here to restock the businesses.
Arcata was pitch black at night, and the police had their hands full. Theft was high because businesses had no alarms..and it was dark. I actually passed a vandalized car..the windows were broken, and I think it was partially stripped. I was told not to drive down the backstreets because there had already been several attacks on people in cars. The madness!
Anyway, we got our power back on yesterday (sometime in the afternoon).
But this was INTENSE! I'm not sure if anyone died..
I've never experienced something like this...and I bet everyone in tornado country is laughing at me right now :>
