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Page A-4 Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, Jan. '13, 2022
The night of breaking trees
his is the second time
I I’ve written the head-
line “The night of
breaking trees” for a newspa-
per. The first was for a story
in The about an
ice storm that hit in the fi-
nal week of 1996. It worked
then, and after talking to
Lake Kokanee-area residents
Charles and Frieda Osborne
last week, it works for this
story in this edition of this
newspaper.
, Sometimes 25-year-old
headlines don’t age.
Theill-effects of last
week’s storm were multiple
and freakish: Trees toppled
across U.S. Highway 101
north of Eldon “like match-
sticks,” according to the
woman behind the counter at
the Lilliwaup store on Friday;
water gushed from several
fissures along the hillside
next to U.S.. 101; roads in the
Skokoim'sh Valley were acces-
sible only to fish and boats;
snow piled up 2 feet and high-
er around Lake Cushman;
prolonged power outages
hit the Tahuya Peninsula;
KIRK ERICSON
THESE
.flMES
a Friday morning king tide
pushed Hood Canal water
over bulkheads; snow shut
all of the major state moun-
tain passes; and miles of
Interstate 5 were out of order
through the Chehalis Valley.
This hasn’t been a brief
' storm either. It all started
Dec. with snow and tem-
peratures that would bottom
out in the teens, and it con-
tinues into this week, with
a couple of inches of rainfall
forecast through todayl That
‘ rain will add to the 7.76 inch-
es of precipitation we’ve had
from Jan. 1 through Monday,
“HHMSNDWEIWWUB,
according to the National
Weather Service’s station
that covers the Olympia area.
Normal monthly precipita-
tion through Jan. 10 is 2.86
inches.
It’s a lot to remember, and
memories of storms survive
as'most memory survives, in
bits, mostly unhitched from
dates and numbers. We re-
member sights, sounds and
emotions, but many of the de-p
tails of this storm
will fade — until they’re sum-
moned again. .
Last Friday was a lovely
afternoon in the county, a
respite from what had been. .
The sky was spotless blue and
the Olympics looked fit for a
Greek deity. Along Cushman-
Potlatch Road, I met the Os-
bomes as they walked back to.
their home on Kokanee Ridge
Drive, carrying a bag of pro-
visions from Lake Cushman
Store. Their car was snowed
in. I gave them a ride back
to their property, where they
told a story. '
I saw a hint to that story:
A fallen limb had left a deep
dent in their neighbor’s
metal garage and a tall tree
of slight girth was leaning
against the house. Tree limbs
littered the ground.
Charles Osborne said they
V slept four nights on the main
floor of their home, instead
of on the top floor where they
usually sleep. That started
Sunday night.
“I was so scared,” Charles
said about that Sunday night.
“More scared than I’ve ever
been.”
He said they were in bed,
listening to the loud cracks
that tolled every minute or
so. The rain Was drenching
the snow that clung to limbs,
causing the wood to break
under the strain. Tree debris
scattered around the north-
ern part of the county was
mostly severed limbs and
tree fragments that fractured .
along the trunk ‘I saw few
uprooted trees.
Perhaps you’ve experi-
enced what the Osbornes ex-
perienced that night. I have.
My‘home also is Surround-
ed by tall trees, including a
sequoia in the backyard that '
would require six adult arms
to encircle. On the night of
that ice storm in 1996, which
is a year I had to summon
from the way back machine,
Mrs. Ericson and I, and prob-
ably our 2-year-old boy, laid
in bed as the exact sounds
the Osbornes stayed awake
to sounded through our
neighborhood.
I remember hearing the
cracks that night and trying
to judge our distance from
each crack, perhaps like civil-
ians in war try to judge the
distance of artillery. With
each crack, I’d wait for the
c0uple'of seconds itmight
take fer that sequoia, or any
other tree, to crash through
the roof and send the three
of us into eternity, or at least
onto the bottom floor. Then
I’d wait for the next crack,
and the next, and. the next.
Here’s to quieter — and
drier and warmer- nights
ahead.
I Contact Kirk Ericson at
kirk@masbncounty.com
Thankvour
between the local community and the and especially competence. Better yet,
perhaps believing in his own mind) it