By KENNETH LIPP/YachatsNews
TIDEWATER — Everyone agrees on one point about the Wednesday night snow and wind storm — the falling trees sounded like constant gunfire.
Although power has been restored to most, Oregon Highway 34 and connecting roads still bear the evidence. Twenty-three miles of the highway and dozens of Alsea Valley secondary roads were closed by trees felled by the wind and weight of a foot or more of snow.
The highway did not reopen between Tidewater and the Benton County line until Saturday.
Many in the corridor saw power restored Friday evening. But people living in more remote locations closed off by fallen trees such as East Canal Creek Road only got electricity again Sunday night.
There are a handful of houses on Canal Creek and another 20 or so houses along the river on adjoining Alder Spring Road, many of which are second homes. On Thursday morning the whole community found itself without power and isolated by a dozen or more fallen trees all the way up to the highway.
Jessica Garrick and Annie Miller were enjoying the snow Wednesday afternoon at their 33-acre homestead just shy of milepost 1.5 of Canal Creek Road, where they moved a month and a half ago. They live in a small two-story home. Garrick’s mother and her husband live in a travel trailer on the hill above them.
“About 8 o’clock, we started hearing trees crack like gunshots,” Garrick said. She was on her second-story porch recording the sound for her friend Darryoush Pishvai of Newport, who runs a tree service. He told her to expect that sound.
She walked inside and turned to close the door when she heard a deafening crack nearby. She grabbed her dog and ran downstairs as she felt the house shake, knocking objects from the wall. A split trunk from a tree near their driveway had broken off, falling on the roof and carport, sending a limb through the windshield and into the dash of Miller’s pickup truck.
She called Pishvai’s wife, Morgan, and told her what happened.
“She says, ‘OK, we’re going to come to you,’ ” Garrick said.
Power went out 20 minutes later and they battled cell phone signals to communicate with friends. Eventually they got a text telling them the Pishvais could not make it up Canal Creek Road and advising them to sleep downstairs.
They promised to come back.
Family to the rescue
Darr and Morgan Pishvai left their home on Yaquina Bay Road just east of Newport and headed to Tidewater about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. As they approached the first bridge across the Alsea River they found many fallen trees at the junction of Highway 34 and Canal Creek Road, blocking both.
A recreational vehicle that just left Taylor’s Landing was stuck between freshly fallen timber. They freed the RV and cut their way toward the entrance of Canal Creek, where it becomes a one lane road.
Trees were crashing all around them. They found a massive hemlock in their path about 75 yards from the highway. Unable to pass, they gave up for the night.
Pishvai runs a seven-person family tree service — he wears the spikes and climbs while Morgan is the lead on ropes. His five sons make up the support crew, with the eldest in charge of operating heavy equipment and moving heavy timber. Darr came back Friday with Stovick, 9, his second youngest son.
“We went up there with propane and fuel and a cart and a saw, and we were just going to hack those things in to them,” he said. “But they met us at the beginning of the road, and we just decided, ‘Let’s do this.’”
Garrick and Miller had hiked 1½ miles with a wheelbarrow and a saw.
That was about 12:30 p.m. Friday. They cut their way south until dark, making it to Alder Springs Road and almost to Garrick and Miller’s homestead.
Pishvai and his son were stuck at their friends’ house overnight when the road froze over.
“We woke up in the morning and a whole bunch of the neighbors saw what was going on, and so a bunch of people pitched in,” Pishvai told YachatsNews on Monday.
They cleared the road to the highway, then moved farther up to cut a tree for a man and his father, who used a tractor to pull the timber out of the road.
“He came out to help his friends, and he ended up saving a community,” Garrick said.
Garrick started a GofundMe to get Pishvai some return on his time, as he could have made a lot of money by taking emergency service calls.
But Pishvai said he’s not worried about compensation.“You can’t leave your friends stranded,” he said.
La Paz Tree Care is booked solid through March with storm-related work. He doesn’t advertise the business or even have business cards, instead relying on repeat customers and word of mouth.
“My great grandma lived in what was called the Hotel Bradshaw (formerly in Nye Beach) so my family’s been in Lincoln County forever,” he said.
Pishvai said he’s “kind of adopted” Canal Creek and will work with friends there to put together a building with saws, ropes, hardware, fuel and oil.
“When that happens again, because that road closes a lot, I could literally just walk in, and we could potentially work from both sides of the road,” he said.
Access a problem
To enter Canal Creek Road on Monday, a YachatsNews reporter drove over a huge pile of splintered wood between the trunk and tilted stump of a massive fallen hemlock. Much of the road from there winds on a cliffside high above the creek, and every 100 yards or so another fallen tree had been cut and cleared from the road. One of those was a giant maple.
In several more places, moss-laden trees fell from the cliff above to the cliff below or dangled in the air above the road, creating a low clearance that would block any large utility vehicle from passing.
The only other traffic Monday was a U.S. Forest Service employee surveying damage and performing some clean up. The Forest Service owns the road and is responsible for its maintenance, but it does not keep plows or other heavy equipment and must contract those tasks out.
On both sides of the road, the snow was still up to a foot deep. Garrick said she had 17 inches overnight Wednesday at her home, located on the other side of a steel bridge across Canal Creek from the main road.
It got down to 21 degrees at her house that night and into the teens overnight Friday. She got power back just after midnight Monday. Since being able to reach town, they’ve bought two generators.
Their insurance company told them the tree damage was an “act of God” and might not be eligible for coverage, Garrick said. Miller is unable to work because the pickup was her work truck. They’ve also started a Gofundme seeking help to get back on their feet.
The scene on Canal Creek was almost certainly mirrored on dozens of subdivision, forest and county roads in the Highway 34 corridor last weekend.
Trees were so thick on the highway that the area’s electricity provider, Consumers Power Inc., spent much of its initial response just clearing the road.
Spokesman Jon Kloor said crews arrived to repair the cooperative’s downed southern transmission line Thursday afternoon, expecting a four-hour job. After spending eight hours cutting and removing trees, they rerouted back to U.S. Highway 20 to tackle the damage from the other side.
The transmission line was repaired Friday evening, allowing CPI to restore power to most customers in the area and repair the rest of its distribution system. Just a handful in the Tidewater area remained in the dark Monday afternoon.
- Kenneth Lipp is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at KenLipp@YachatsNews.com
I use to live at the 19 mile marker but thanks I don’t no more hope even were okay it was quite a storm we had 10 inches in Toledo out by the golf course and we lost power to I’m glad it’s over
I live between the 11-12 mile marker on Highway 34 in Tidewater. My two next-door neighbors and I are situated on a ridge to the left of the highway as you head east. We could not even get down our steep driveway because of the snow. We kept in touch via phone, or walked to each other’s homes to make sure our mini-neighborhood was OK. Thank goodness, no trees located on the hill behind us came down. We were all relieved when the power finally came back on, because that also meant our communal water pump was also working again. And one of my neighbors arranged for a buddy of his to plow out our driveway.
I, for one, am extremely grateful to the Consumer Power crews and the ODOT crews. They did a valiant and amazing job under absolutely horrible conditions. Yes, I know they get paid to do this, but that doesn’t make it a fun job for them. I even emailed both services thank you notes.
Excellent reporting by Kenneth Lipp. Thank you.