I know I have been blogging like a broken record about the Santa Ana wind storm (aka Windocalypse) that hit my neighborhood last week. And I'm going to try to stop blogging about all the fallen trees. But I just had to share this photo:
Someone put a Santa hat on a stump. How awesome is that? Talk about making the best of a bad situation.
Now I want to buy some cheap Santa hats and put them in random places to make people smile. Do you think it's a federal offense to put a Santa hat on a mailbox?
Last week, the Santa Ana winds tore through Pasadena and kicked the crap out of my neighborhood. It was a natural disaster in a major city, but the media treated it like a bad traffic jam. They did not even try to give the storm a cool name, like Windocalypse or Stormy.
You know why the media basically ignored Windocalpyse? Because it hit suddenly and with unexpected intensity - so the media did not get a chance to go into pre-storm panic mode and predict The Coming of the End of Days. And, fortunately, no one died - so the media did not get to speculate about the death toll. Who wants to report on power outages and fallen trees? BORING.
But Windocalypse was a natural disaster, and it caused a lot of damage. Thousands lost power for days. In Pasadena, more than 400 trees fell, landing on houses, fences and cars. The streets were literally dammed with trees, as if hoards of devil beavers had attacked Pasadena during the night.
The City of Pasadena has done a five star job cleaning up the mess. My only complaint is that I have forfeited my right to complain about the City (and come on, who doesn't like to complain about the government?)
While I was taking a walk in my neighborhood this weekend, I saw this holiday sign:
Let's just zoom in on the sign:
My neighbors lost their white picket fence during the storm, and now they are wishing everyone "Happy Holidays." Or are there?
I cannot decipher the intended tone for this message. Do the owners mean "happy holidays" as in "let's hang the stockings, drink some egg nog and count our blessings - we're so lucky we just lost this old fence"? Or, do they mean "happy holidays" as in "we maxed out our credit cards on Black Friday, Grandma Edith started drinking again during the storm, we forgot to renew our homeowner's policy last month, so Santa can take our picket fence and shove it up his you-know-what"?
My Inner Cynic tells me it's the latter. But, in the spirit of the season, I've decided it must be the former. Maybe Santa will bring them a new picket fence for Christmas.
I would like to thank the City of Pasadena for its swift response to the damage caused by last night's Santa Ana wind storm. I have been listening to the musical stylings of chainsaws all afternoon as clean-up crews attack the fallen trees. I cannot imagine how long it will take to clear all of the debris, but it seems like the City effectively triaged the situation.
I would also like to commend my postman, who is still delivering the mail, despite the fact that half of the blocks in my neighborhood are impassable. Benjamin Franklin, the first United States General Postmaster, would be proud:
And finally, as I wrap up these storm posts, my thoughts and prayers are with my neighbors who suffered serious damage to their homes and personal property.
It's only 2011, but I hope this was Pasadena's "Storm of the Century."
Holy crap, I'm exhausted! It's only 3 p.m. and I'm ready to crawl into bed and spend the next 18 hours sleeping. This probably has something to do with the fact that I spent several hours today cleaning up damage from the Santa Ana wind storm that swept through Pasadena last night.
We had to rake leaves, fish leaves out of the pool, clear away branches, and pick up dozens of roof tiles from the ground. And after all our work, it still looks like a tornado ravaged the backyard last night.
There's more wind in tonight's forecast (YAY!), so we also relocated chairs, pool toys, the deck box, etc. into our garage. I'd like to think that tonight will be better. But in case it's not, I don't want a watering can flying through the bedroom window.
In all, my husband and I feel very lucky. Our pool filter is clogged and might be broken, and the wind blew tons of tiles off the roof, but we are safe and unhurt.
The 100 year old trees in our neighborhood were not so lucky.
I feel so sad for the trees. They are so old and majestic, and they gave our neighborhood so much beauty and character. I still feel overwhelmed and shocked every time I look out the window and see the trees lying across the street. Poor trees.
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.
