Wind!

We were supposed to get some more rain and cold weather at the end of this week, but as the time grew closer I noticed that the predicted temps were getting warmer and the chance of rain was getting less. All this sounded great until yesterday when I happened to notice that there was a High Wind Warning in effect. With a chance of 80 mph gusts. That's pretty serious.

Rocket Boy, having been married to me for 11 years, tends not to listen to me, so I told him about the High Wind Warning several times. "Eighty mile per hour wind gusts!" I said. "Don't put the garbage and recycling down by the curb, it'll just blow away." (Friday is garbage day.) I also asked him repeatedly whether there was anything in the backyard that was not tied down. There's still lots of junk back there, but of course it's wet, so less likely to take flight. He finally went out and staked down the tent-canopy thing.

It was a little windy at dinner time, but subsided. The big winds weren't supposed to kick in until after midnight. The twins were in bed by 8 pm and their mom by 11. I slept very deeply, but at some point was awakened by the wind. You can't sleep through a truly high wind in this house. For one thing, our street is a wind tunnel. Winds come off the mountains and ROAR right down our street. Our house is surrounded by trees, which sway and creak in the wind. It's just LOUD.

Rocket Boy was awake too. "Damn wind," he said, which is his usual comment. I reminded myself that we had horrid winds in Ridgecrest too, accompanied by dust storms. At least no dust storms in Boulder.

The trees creaked. I'm always terrified that our gigantic old elm tree will fall on the house. It never has before, but it does drop limbs. Plus, the soil is still very wet and soft from the rains of one month ago. If the tree fell on the house, it would do more damage to the rooms on that side of the house -- the kitchen, the bathroom -- but it might take out the twins' room too.

Just then I heard them scream.

And my first thought was: the elm tree! But then I reminded myself that I had not heard a crash. Probably they were just scared. I started fumbling for my glasses, tried to turn on my bedside lamp. Funny, it wouldn't turn on.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Both boys were screaming and crying. A power failure, that's what it was. That's why the light wouldn't turn on. No power meant no nightlight in their room, no nightlight in the hall, and their shade was pulled down and the curtains closed. I finally found my glasses and stumbled through our crowded room, down the pitch black hallway, and into their pitch black room.

"It's OK, boos, I'm here. Just a power failure, don't worry." I found Baby B over in the corner, trying to figure out why the nightlight wasn't working. I lifted him up and got him back to his bed.

"Where ARE you?" Baby A was screaming.

"I'm right here on the loveseat," I said, reaching up to pull up their shade and open the curtains. Since the sky was cloudy, the night was not completely black, and a faint light came into their room.

"Why is there a power failure?" both boos wanted to know. They were still crying, just a mess of nerves. I explained that it was because of the wind. Probably a tree or a branch fell on a power line, something like that. A bright light suddenly came into the room -- the headlights of a fire truck, driving slowly down the street. It turned down 33rd Street, perhaps on its way to the power line problem, or perhaps it was just searching for damage, downed trees and the like.

Meanwhile, Rocket Boy got up and found flashlights and candles. He lit one big candle in the kitchen and another in the bathroom. And I thought: why, in all the time I spent telling him not to put out the recycling and all that, didn't I think to set up flashlights and candles? I know what happens in high wind storms, at least I used to. Maybe because the power never once went out during our 17 inches of rain a month ago, I thought it wouldn't go out this time either. Live and learn, and relearn. I'm gradually remembering how to survive in this part of the country.

At some point I went back to our room and checked the time on my battery alarm clock: 3:45 am. Lovely. At least it meant I'd had over 4 hours of sleep, and boos had had more than 7. It's worse when the wind wakes you up at 1 am and you spend the rest of the night tossing and turning. Still, this wasn't great either. We got up and had some snacks, went back to their room and read a few stories by flashlight. The wind was still raging. I couldn't bring myself to look into the backyard, where the big trees are, but I watched the smaller trees in the front yard with interest. Over and over, our little birch tree bent 90 degrees to the east... and then flipped upright again. The honey locust, which is kind of a round tree, seemed to be whirling in circles. And the recycling bin was on its side, with papers blowing down the street. "I told you not to put the recycling out!" I said to Rocket Boy, crossly. Will that man ever learn to listen to me?

"I didn't put it out," Rocket Boy said. He came to the window to look. "The wind must have blown it down the driveway."

Here's the NCAR record of last night's winds, which I checked this morning. Can you see that really really high wind gust, nearly touching the 80 mph line? That occurred at 3:40 am.

The power went back on at one point, went off again, and finally came back on for good. At about 5:15 am, wiped out, I convinced the boos to go back to bed, turn off all flashlights, and they even let me close their door and go back to my own bed. "We'll probably get a robo-call at 6 am to tell us school's cancelled," I murmured to Rocket Boy as I burrowed under the covers. We didn't get a call, but when my alarm went off at 6:30, I turned it off and went back to sleep. Surely, even if they were having school today, it would be OK to be a little late.

I woke up again at 7:55, which is when the school bell rings. The sky was bright. I hurried to dress and get the twins up. "I'll drive you to school," I told them. "We'll be late, but it'll be OK."

Outside, there was some evidence of the winds, but not a lot. Some leaves on the ground. The recycling truck picked up what was left of our recycling.The flood trash didn't blow away (too wet). The little birch tree was standing upright once again, and the honey locust had stopped spinning.

It just amazes me how resilient trees can be.

I took the twins to school. We were about 40 minutes late. The parking lot was full. We went in through the main door and I signed a tardy slip. "Did the boys have an appointment?" the secretary asked. I explained about the high winds and she looked at me uncomprehendingly.

"We live on Dartmouth and it's like a wind tunnel," I faltered. This was really the last straw, having to tell someone about the winds who didn't believe me. I took the boys to their classroom, where their teacher was pleased to see them. A quick glance at the name board told me that only one student was absent today. Did no one else have our winds?

Home again, I took a look in the backyard.

The tied-down canopy did blow over, but at least it wasn't in Mrs. Ernest's backyard. There were a few branches on the lawn, but not many.

I came inside and looked at the wind records on the NCAR website. The chart I show above is for the Mesa site, which is visible from our house. It's higher than we are, but the winds that blow by it come right down to our house. It occurred to me to check the Foothills site too, which is a couple miles north of here.

See the difference? Much less wind, and the peak gusts were around 40 mph, not nearly 80. I suppose the school secretary lives near there, or somewhere else entirely. Not south Boulder, at any rate. And yet, all those kids in their class -- most of them live right in our neighborhood. Were we the only ones who heard the wind?