Wind Storm Damage: Part One

Last night, we had a wind storm in Pasadena.  The Santa Ana winds were in rare form.  All night, the winds howled and raged and swirled around our house.  It felt like our house was a ship at sea in a storm being pummeled by waves.  I also kept thinking about Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. 

In the morning, I looked out the bedroom window and saw this:

I was not surprised by all the leaves in the pool, but I did not think the wind was actually pick up our deck box and throw it into the deep end of the pool:

When I looked out our front window, I teared up.  Our street is lined with beautiful old trees and almost all of them sustained serious damage.  The hurricane force winds snapped off enormous branches.

We were able to clear away the branches that were blocking our driveway, but we cannot do anything about the tree in the street:

It feels like we survived a rainless hurricane.