Trees Down

The worst of the storm hit this morning, with rain and heavy winds gusting from the south to 45 miles per hour. I didn’t get very far into my day at the office when the lights flickered a tad. The power stayed on, but we lost network connectivity, leaving me aimless for a while. My officemate Jim looked out our window, and noticed that the acacia tree just to the south was swaying in the gusts down to its base. Even its exposed roots were moving a bit.

We got to see the tree fall. About an hour later, the tree was leaning heavily, and Jim had summoned in four other folks from the windowless computer lab across the hall. A gust, and it gently toppled as we all applauded. A brand-new Toyota Prius parked nearby barely escaped damage, as only the leafy bits of the tree landed above it. A campus landscaping crew came by and cleaned up the mess by three in the afternoon.

Pica meanwhile went home for lunch to find that one of the tall black walnuts across the street had fallen and completely blocked the road. By nightfall the Solano County road crew had cleared off the road, and all I saw of the event was lots of logs and cut branches piled on the eastern bank of the road.