A Windy Night

A Windy Night

It was a good thing I slept well during the day, since I was working the graveyard shift at Humboldt Bay Power Plant, five miles south of Eureka, California. The day was December 22, 1977 and we were living in Rio Dell, which is in the Eel River Valley. This valley is in the heart of redwood country. David was sixteen months old and Cindy was six months pregnant with our second child.

When I was up and about, I heard an unusual clanking noise outside. It sounded like empty trash cans were tumbling down the street. There was a good explanation for that racket. The trash collectors had just made their rounds, so my trash cans were empty. They were not, however, in front of my house anymore. The wind was pushing them down the street. I ran fast to retrieve them. This was my first sign that an unusual windstorm was blowing in.

It got worse. The power went out, which was no surprise. The house shook. That was a surprise. You don’t need a meteorologist to tell you its windy when your house is shaking and all you hear is the wind howling, with an occasional bump in the night. I should point out that our backyard was covered with trees.

Although these were hurricane force winds, there was actually very little rain falling. Many other things were falling, but I’ll get to that later.

At 11 p.m. I left to go to work. Cindy expressed concern for me as I was leaving, but I pointed out I would be better off than she, as soon as I started the car. After all, she would still be in the dark.

My commute to work was entering the 101 freeway and driving north for twenty miles. Fortunately for me, that was the direction the wind was blowing. I remember there was less traffic than usual. There was a car parked on the side of the road with the driver frantically flagging me down. Doing my good deed for the day, I stopped and offered my assistance. He was a young man trying to drive home to Fortuna, the next town north of Rio Dell. He ran out of gas, just a few miles from home, because all the gas stations were closed due to lack of power. He asked that I drive him to home. His mother stayed in the car while I did this. His father was available to return him to his car with a can full of gasoline. I was glad I left for work earlier than normal.

The freeway crosses over a hill and descends into the Humboldt Bay area. When I reached the northern side of the hill I was surprised to see city lights. It turns out this was a localized windstorm affecting the Eel River Valley more than Eureka and the Humboldt Bay area. It was windy, but not as windy. There were scattered outages on this side of the hill, including the community across the street from the power plant. I was expecting the power plant to be off line, but it was still on-line, but at a reduced power output.

The man I relieved at the power plant was very impressed with the wind speeds he experienced while working the swing shift. One of our duties included inspecting the outside equipment, both at ground level and high on the boiler towers. However, he wasn’t climbing any outside stairs for nobody in that wind. He told me that the sheet metal cover to an outside waste oil collection tank was missing. This cover was about eight foot square and one half inch thick.

The winds dramatically decreased throughout the night, enabling me to safely make my outside rounds. I even went to the top of the boilers, about one hundred feet in elevation. When there was enough light, I found the missing cover thirty feet from the tank. The wind had lifted it up and thrown it over a five foot high oil pipe.

When my day shift relief arrived, he told me he heard that the Eel River Valley was declared a disaster area. This was shocking news to him, since he was in northern Humboldt County, which was not affected.

I returned home to a very relieved wife. We did a quick damage assessment. Three trees on our property were toppled, including my favorite redwood tree. Part of our fence was knocked down. Fortunately for us, there was no damage to the house.

A local grocery store on our block lost its roof. A tree collapsed on a house on the next street over. Elsewhere in the county, three people were killed when a redwood tree fell on their car as they were fleeing the storm. These were the only fatalities; however, there were a number of other injuries. A drive-in theater screen was destroyed. The only good news was that an old barn in the town of Ferndale was also demolished. Tree limbs and power lines were down everywhere.  

I heard I rumor that a wind gauge meter was broken by a gust of wind exceeding 134 miles per hour. Otherwise, I have no idea how fast the winds blew that night.

The rest of California didn’t notice, or care about, our little maelstrom because the Bakersfield area was hit by a much larger windstorm with gusts exceeding 192 miles per hour. Google, “Bakersfield 1977 windstorm,” for an interesting search result.

Our power was restored the next day, in time for my brother to visit. Since Christmas was on a Sunday, I knew he and his wife would want to attend church. That was the first time I had ever been in an LDS church. At the start of the meeting, the man conducting the meeting announced that all the ward members were okay. I wondered at the time how he could know that.

I met the stranded man at the grocery store a few days later. He expressed his gratitude and then told me what his mother had done. She had opened the doors and let the wind push her car down the road. She had traveled almost a mile before he caught up with her.