Surviving the weather hype

For days our local weathermen have been hyping a windstorm "of historic proportions" coming our way, scheduled to hit last night. Well, it did -- but it wasn't anything really major. Sure, a few downed trees in the water-logged ground, some power outages, 40 mph gusts, but nothing to suggest "historic proportions." The weather folks are always exaggerating the weather like that. Part of the Age of Hype.


For an historic storm, you have to go back to October 12, 1962: the Columbus Day Storm, or the "Big Blow":

With little fear of exaggeration, it can be stated that the Columbus Day Storm of 1962 was the most powerful windstorm to strike the Pacific Northwest in the 20th century. Certainly no windstorm since has generated as much widespread devastation as the Big Blow, not even close.

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On that occasion, Portland reported a gust of 116 mph. Highest in the state was Newport at 138. 40 mph winds pale by comparison.

All the same, you don't need to make history to be miserable. Even a small storm can cause havoc for some folks. Thus we were lucky. We didn't lose power and although I haven't made the morning rounds outside, I didn't hear any crashing through the night. I assume we got through fine.

P.S. I see on the news that this storm caused much more damage than I imagined, just not in our part of town. Not a killer storm but definitely a big hassle for a lot of folks.