Force Majeure
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
For those of you not in the know, we had a bit of a storm here in the Pacific Northwest on Thursday night. The only reason it wasn’t a hurricane is that we don’t have hurricanes in the Pacific Northwest. However, the net effect was the same. We’ve got trees down everywhere, and haven’t had electricity since Thursday around 4:00pm.
What a hoot.
In any case, don’t expect anything from me in the near future. I had to drive 40 miles to check my email and post this, and the drive itself was problematic due to trees on the highway. If you write the Audio Damage info line, don’t expect an answer immediately.
18 comments
I hear you Chris. I'm without power (in WA) as well. Cheers to the public library system. Free wi-fi. And that was one crazy storm. Trees down everywhere. The entire city and surrounding areas lost electricity. The cities are back up but the "burbs" are still out. A couple of trees in my neighborhood took out a couple of houses. I have no idea how ours was spared.
Lo, and furthermore hark, my power just came back on, and with it the Interwebs. Whee. Back from the stone age at last.
In any case, despite the heavier weather in Oregon, it looks like Washington got the worst damage. Maybe you're less used to weather problems? Or the fact that there are more people to harm? Your peak winds were in the 60s, while ours were well in to the 100mph range. (114 in one coastal town, low 90s here in the Cascades.)
But it looks like things can get back to normal now. At least for Mill City, Oregon. We had to empty out our refrigerator because everything spoiled. That was hard. At least $100 worth of cheese, never mind the stuff in the freezer.
-CR
> At least $100 worth of cheese, never mind the stuff in the freezer.
Hey, at least you're just down the road (relatively speaking) from Tillamook.
- Jeff
In Vancouver Canada we have been getting hit pretty hard recently as well. Lots of power outages. The wind screwed up our water supply last month, making it a boil only advisory for nearly two weeks.
CR,
How did you lose $100 worth of cheese? Aged cheeses should be fine for a couple days, and fresh Mascarpone or Buffalo Mozzerella or whatever fresh cheese is not the type of thing you stock up on (since it goes bad quickly, even with refridgeration). You aren't buying the $50 or $100 per kilo stuff, are you? Yikes!
Couldn't you put it in a cooler and just store the cheese outside at this time of year, or am I totally off on my ideas of your climate?
As a cheese lover, I feel your pain though!
After we got our power back in FL after all the hurricanes wal-mart did some shady shit. The ice cream had all melted and they just let it freeze back up,SOUR, and just sold them. Doritos dont go bad, them chef boyardee microwaveables can be eaten cold and make a great hurricane aftermath food. Drink boxes, kool-aid,capri sun,..wateris hard to find as well as gas. We lose running water though, dont know if that happened to you in the northwest. If it does happen again be prepared fill up anything with water for washing and for drinking. Poor mans shower after a hurricane is fill up a plastic shopping bag with water and poke pinholes in it tyeing to the top of your shower head.
Keeping it music related, if you find someone with a generator you might feel bad hooking anything gear to it cause its usually used for the refridgerator and keeping the kids sane with TV. Might just have to go totally lappy and bum lappy charges off of them. I sheltered up with someone with a guitar who only knew how to play hotel california......800 fucking times. It was a nightmare. He butchered that tune.
And more ppl die and get injuries after weather like this not during.
Not for nothing, but living somewhere that wasn't a swamp in living memory means that water is almost always potable. Our city water worked fine during the outage, and our heat and hot water heater are gas, so we were never cold or in need of a shower. We're looking in to buying a place next year, and I'm going to make sure the stove is gas, in addition to the hot water heater and household heat, because the main problem we ran in to was the fact that my wife couldn't properly cook, but were limited to things that could be made with small appliances.
In any case, I own a generator, like anyone that lives in the rural parts of the Pacific Northwest and has half a brain. The power goes out here all the time in the winter. This was the longest it's been out since I moved here, though. Just shy of 80 hours. The worst thing about the whole ordeal (other than very nearly dying, which I detailed in my other blog) was dealing with the boredom, as my idea of a well-spent day doesn't involve sitting in front of my TV and watching HGTV in HD for 18 hours. I saw the same episode of House Hunters International like four times.
All six people that died in this storm died during the storm itself, mostly because they were crushed by falling Douglas fir trees. One elderly couple died because they were unable to escape their burning house at the height of the storm, and the fire department was unable to get there because of trees on the highway. The other four were hit by trees, or their house was collapsed by one.
Viz. the cheese, we only really eat high-end stuff (except for the occasional Hot Pocket) so our cheese investment is on the high side. A single brick of Tillamook sharp cheddar is $14; Colby is $16 and mozzarella is $12. Never mind the brie, gorgonzolla, parmagian, etc. (I imagine I spelled at least one of those right.) Whether or not it was still edible after three and a half days at 60+ wasn't really something I wanted to ponder. So I tossed it.
-CR
Let me just say, for the record, that I'm really happy I didn't lose my business partner during that storm. It actually crossed my mind that it was a possibility after we'd been out of our usual contact for over 24 hours.
I mean, it would have sounded silly, too. "Yeah, our business was really starting to take off, but Chris was killed by a tree. ... No, really..."
--Adam
that sux. we only last power for 4 hours in portland and we were in the minority. most people didn't lose power... only 224,000
glad you are OK.. and didn't decide to climb mt hood. i hope those dudes are OK. it's been a week though.
i grew up in miami and was there for a fwe hurricanes including andrew. it sucked. no power for 17 days and it was hot and that just makes people even stupider it seems. now, lot's of people are getting these generators that look like small diesel engines... they run on propane. big 500 gallon tanks of it! it's crazy.
anyway--- as i say.. glad youa re ok. could always have been worse right?
maybe this will cheer you up.
http://www.em411.com/blog/1476/0/tards_quotcomparequot_sh101_and_201.html
At least they know how to get things fixed. Here in St Louis, people were out of power for a week because of 2 inches of snow.
105 mph in WA. I'm still without power. Trees took down power lines. We had 1 million without power. WA definitely got hit harder than OR.
Shit. We barely have 1 million people here period.
But for what it's worth, my mom still doesn't have power and she only lives about 5 miles from me. Lots of people are still in the dark here.
-CR
Sorry to hear about this, I was stuck without power here in Queens for almost four days this summer. No cool storm though, just gross mismanagement of the public utilities.. Truly sucked.
-d
Hmmm. I'm going to be visiting my parents in Stayton, uh, tomorrow. I wonder how the actual valley did. Maybe that's why I haven't had any email in the last couple of days, but you'd think they'd call or something.
Stayton is fine, like nothing ever happened. I don't even think they lost power for more than a couple hours. That's where I had to go to get groceries and gas and such while the canyon was out.
While you're there, perhaps you can ask about why they're so obsessed with saying "Canyon this" and "Canyon that" when they clearly live in the Valley. I live in the Santiam Canyon, as does everyone in Lyons, Mill City, Gates, and Detroit. Stayton is on a plain in the Valley, as far as I can tell.
-CR
Glad to hear you came through ok Chris, with nothing worse than some spoilt cheese.
I'm in Eastern WA & had a gig in Seattle this Saturday night. The drive was interesting once in & through the pass, due to being completely black and there being no open businesses once West of the pass. The Mercer island area & beyond into Seattle had power (and I'm sure weren't out too long after the storm), but finding most gas stations out of gas or attended by cops was interesting. Especially since we didn't even find open gas stations with power until long after the little light had been on. At least the storm was a few days before Saturday or my trip would surely have been a LOT more eventful. =]
We did of coruse also get the same windstorm here in Spokane, although a few hours later & with slightly belated wind power. It still managed to knock out our Power and left my Scope box in a bad state (I still haven't had time to figured ou exactly what is misbehaving).
The coolest thing about watching it pass here in Spokane was watching the clouds go overhead at 3-4am (the peak here early in the storm). Pretty much the same thing as last november, below the higher cumulonimbus clouds were spotty bright clouds that were really low & really really fast. I could watch one go from horizon to horizon in really short order, and they were much brighter than the higher clouds for some reason, even with the power out. It gave everything a very time-elapsed 'apocalyptic' feel.
My father helpfully points out that during his 30 years teaching high school in Stayton, people from anywhere east up highway 22 were often referred to as "Canyon Rats." Thus, adopting the use of the word "Canyon" for things around here is actually, uh... I dunno. Validating the Canyon or something? Or attempting to catch onto some of the cool cachet the Santiam Canyon has developed? I have no idea. I think he's making it up.
I have to say, I'm glad (and after growing up here, kind of surprised) that anyone is doing anything cool anywhere around here... Back in the long-ago-days when I mail-ordered a Casio CZ101 from California so I could have a REAL! DIGITAL! SYNTHESIZER! to play with (at age 17) that was basically it for interesting music stuff anywhere nearby... I probably just didn't know what was going on, though.
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