Snowpocolypse

Sunday, February 24th

A heavy, wet snow began falling in the afternoon. Sometime after dinner (yay!) the power went out. This is unusual, but not a huge concern as it typically comes back after an hour or two. We retired to bed for the evening.

Monday, February 25th

I woke in the wee hours, as usual, and the power was still out. I looked out the window, and it was dark all over town and the snow was still falling. I carefully went downstairs to use the bathroom, and gaze at the rare snow covering everything. I was looking out the window at the end of the living room just as a huge spruce branch crashed down on our carport, making a very loud noise. Karen called out “Are you okay?” I replied “That wasn’t me. A limb crashed down.”

I went back to sleep until about sunrise, just as it was light enough to see. Branches and trees that accumulated snow had come down. I later learned that this was true almost everywhere throughout the county.

Spruce branch piercing the carport roof.

About the time Karen came downstairs, with the power still out, I realized that we needed to get a fire going. The inside of the house was 55 degrees. Our vivarium pump and heater had stopped, and we were concerned about the fish. We also needed a way to heat water so we could have COFFEE. I dressed in winter clothes and boots and made the trek to gather some wood stored under the carriage house, which was dry. I shortly had a roaring fire going which began to warm the living room. We left the rest of the house closed, as there was no way we could heat the whole thing.

During this time there was a lull in the snowfall. We shoveled the driveway and tossed the large tree debris to the side so that Karen could drive to the street, which had ruts from vehicles enough that the car could be driven. She returned after about 45 minutes with COFFEE from Dutch Bros.

Shortly after she returned it began snowing hard, again.

About noon, I put a pan on the stove and we made grilled cheese sandwiches. The room had warmed to about 65 degrees.

Making lunch on our wood stove.

Our power returned about 3 p.m. We and the fish were happy. Our cat couldn’t care less.

Tuesday, February 26th

Roseburg was pretty much completely shut down. We spent some time assessing the situation in our yard. There was a lot of damage to shrubs and trees. Some were completely destroyed.  

Small cedar tree laying down on the patio. Sad.

The snow stopped falling in the afternoon. We cleared the driveway again. We went to my workplace and found that our offices (in the basement) had “flooded” with about 2 inches of water.

Wednesday, February 27th

We hunkered down, as power was still out in most areas around us, and both of our workplaces were still not operating.

Lots of branches that were broken and fell.

Thursday, February 28th, Friday, March 1st

I went to work to assess the damage. The carpet had been removed, leaving the tough glue that held it down. There were blowers and dehumidifiers running. It was really loud, and I stayed for about half of each day.

Not much was accomplished other than just assessing the condition of equipment.

Most of this Privet is now on the ground. I ended up taking this completely out.

Monday, March 4th

The next week we began a long, long process of replacing damaged equipment (mostly UPSes that lived on the floor) and getting the workplace functional again for our staff. We moved out of the basement about the beginning of June.

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