So, moving heaven and earth I was able to finagle my way into returning home from the lake (instead of driving down and spending one more night with my Dad). We got home and luckily I was able to get a great spot 16 miles from our house on the Crooked River. I knew there was going to be thunderstorms that weekend an planned accordingly. I told Carleen and Jennifer to be prepared. I told them what a thunderstorm in Central Oregon usually consists of.
They were heading out to our house on Friday, but I had a ton of stuff. Brent was amazing enough to keep running me out to the campsite to help set it up and download the MASS amounts of things I was going to bring. When we got there on Friday I decided to move to one more spot over where the tent and table would have more tree coverage. Emmett and Moose came too. He was so excited he thought he was going camping!
The first spot I picked was next to a fence and the trail down to the river was right by the door of the tent/end of the fence. It was a little steep, but its always nice to have river access.
We stayed up late talking and making smores. Perfect* There were so many frogs across the river it was like a symphony of croaking. At points it would get louder randomly and then at other points it would cease completely. With that and the river in the background it was very peaceful and soothing to the soul. But I guess I am one who gets recharged by nature. I love being by a river more than anywhere on earth.
Carleen's dogs did keep us up quite a bit. They were not still next to the tent and kept getting tangled on the picnic table. She was nervous about leaving them in her truck...so that was hard
We woke the next morning a little groggy. I got up with the dogs and sat with them while Jen and Carleen slept. It was a gorgeous blue sky morning. Carleen was still pretty tired, so Jen and I took the dogs to my house to get some more firewood, while Carleen took a nap. We were gone awhile, it took a little bit of time loading up and letting all of the dogs play together.
When we got back to the campground we unloaded and I started making lunch. I made chicken curry salad. Carleen's dog Remi helped himself to some of the chicken, but it still ended up working out.
The wind was starting to pick up and the clouds started rolling in.
I was telling them the wind does pick up pretty rapidly and we should probably secure some things so that they don't blow away. While we were starting to clean up and tie things down we also decided to take some before pictures of us and the scenery.
The wind started really picking up while we were taking photos. We saw the clouds moving really fast and the lightning started. Again, at this point I am thinking nothing of this weather because we literally have thunderstorms every year, I was so wrong.
While tying things down to the picnic table we see down river, the wind started to pick up and start what looks like a dust cloud. Suddenly we see one of the campsites just get blown into the river. The tent, coolers, chairs, EVERYTHING. Just Poof! Gone! Into the river.
At this point Jennifer decided to take a video. I decide to get in my tent and hold it down. The dusty cloud of wind is heading this way quickly and it would be there within the minute.
As I am in the tent and I am trying to peek out of the small slit between the door and the fly I see the wind coming. I brace myself, but the whole tent seems to go sideways. I just remember screaming and laughing while getting pounded with wind. After a minute or so it seemed to die down a little. I went to the far end of the tent to look at my sister who were screaming different things. At this point I decided to start recording. It didn't work...but at some point within those few minutes I record when a second strong series of gusts hit us, along with the hail and rain.
At this point, Carleen has secured what she can and runs her dogs to her truck. Jen joins me in the tent. We are both holding the poles, while the wind and hail are literally fighting us. It was intense. I wanted to lay the tent down and run to the truck, but all of our things were still in there. It was probably much faster than it felt, but we devised a plan to grab as much as we could and make a run for the truck. We would take turns holding up the tent and then once we had our important things out we would collapse it. I held the tent while Jen grabbed her wet belongings and stuffed them into her back pack. Water was running past my feet through the tent in a steady stream. It was like someone had a hose going in the center of the tent. Jen switched with me so that I could grab my things and put on some rain boots instead of sliders. At this point Carleen had ran to get us out of the tent because the trees were swaying and there were branches cracking off trees everywhere. She was afraid we would get squashed. We followed through with our plan and finally the tent was collapsed and we were all in the car.
After about two minutes in the car the wind and hail started to subside. Within five minutes the clouds had rolled past and bits of blue sky were visible again.
From the car we took a few pictures of our soaking wet bodies, and the campground that looked like small rivers had ran through it. We had laughed so hard we were crying. Even though it was a little scary and got our adrenaline pumping, we had a great time.
Once the rain almost completely stopped we got out to see if we could salvage anything from the campsite that had blown down the hill...and assess the damage to my equipment.
We gathered what we could decided we needed to just head back to my house due to the soaking wet sleeping bags, clothes, pillows, etc...
We got in the car and headed back. Our plan was to shower and change, drop off the dogs, then come back to the camp and pack it up.
On our way out of the campground we saw the campers tent in the river. Thankfully they were fly fishermen with waiters and were able to retrieve all of their things.
As soon as we got in cell service range I text Brent and told him we were coming home. At this point I still though that was a little slightly intense normal thunderstorm. Brent text back and told me just to be prepared to come home to NO POWER. As we headed into town there was tree carnage everywhere. Full trees tipped over and branches tattered all over the road and sidewalks. Peoples roof shingles were off. It was crazy. When we got to the house Brent has said he has never experienced wind like this, and that is when it finally sunk in (ya I am a little slow apparently) that this was not just a normal thunderstorm.
We soon found out it was very unusual and some winds clocked in from 70-100 miles per hour.
Once we changed and warmed up we headed back out to the campground to pack up. On the way out we took photos of some of the damage we saw.
We were almost back to the campground when a group of deer passed the highway and crossed the river.
When we got back to the site the tent was still pretty wet. We packed up and were in awe of how nice, sunny and back to normal everything was.
We ended up having to leave our firewood. So did everyone else. The campground cleared out and all that was left was yellow slips on the posts and piles of firewood. We were the second to the last folks out. The guys fishing their stuff out of the river were there a little longer.
My brother came over and we played cribbage by flashlight/candlelight. Then we took the kids on a 10 o'clock walk around our neighborhood with Jen. With all the excitement no one was in bed.
Over the next couple days there were videos and photos posted all over social media that were capturing people's experiences during that storm. Some people were out on the lake, others were in cars. There were areas like Culver where they said it was like a tornado. Gals at work said that they experienced the sky turning green, like nothing they had ever seen before. I was able to find a few pictures from the area that captured the clouds and green sky.
No comments:
Post a Comment