Storm Memories

admin December 13, 2019December 13, 2019

This is part 1 of a 2 part story about the events of Southern Oregon in the last year and my participation in REALOregon sesion #2, located in Roseburg…

Less than a year ago, February 2019, Southern Oregon had a tremendous snow storm. It was the first time I remember hearing about a Bomb Cyclone from weather forecasters. The news made it sound like it was a terrible winter storm that hit the areas of the Willamette Valley and going as far south as the southern border of the state with the most damaging winds with heavy snowfall in the lower half of the state. The event was expected to last just 24 four hours before sending a chilling cold to settle into the area that would freeze all snow and moisture where it lay.

The storm dumped up to a foot of snow along with high winds. The city of Roseburg was snarled to a standstill. Interstate 5 was shut down from Woodburn to California.

a red snowcat — Snowcat picture courtesy of Shutterstock

Vital communication towers were stuck on lonesome hilltops without electricity and battery power running out. Snowcats (tracked dozers that can scale snowy, mountainous terrain)that were called into service from several areas around the state were loaded onto trailers in an attempt to head to Eugene to dig the city out of the piled snow, many of them could not negotiate the closed roads to get the equipment to the city or to the hilltop towers. A trainload full of passengers was stuck in Oakridge for several days because of fallen trees blocking the forward movement with snow and more downed trees blocking the option to reverse and no way for outside crews to get to the site to clear the tracks. And the storm wasn’t done yet. By May 1st, the federal government declared declared the it as a disaster area and cleared funds to assist with $30 million dollars to help pay for the damage to public infrastructure in Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jefferson and Lane counties.

the line of felled timber next to neighboring blm land — Because of the steep terrain, cleanup can only be accomplished through a clear-cut harvest in this section. The line of standing trees still with much damage and fallen timber is the edge of neighbor BLM land

Once the snow melted and logging crews were able to get back into the woods, they found a lot more damage. The thick layer of snow had weighed the trees down and the damaging winds tore many right out of the ground or snapped them off. Trees lay littered criss-cross on the ground, tipped into other standing or barely standing trees and leaving dangerous conditions throughout the forest.

clear cut and standing timber stands — Areas that cannot be cleaned up with thinning and dead timber removal are subject to clear cut before replanting

Since that storm, crews in the Roseburg area have been doing storm cleanup rather then their planned logging. But leaving the huge amount of dead and dying fiber in the forest is a dangerous proposition on several fronts. It is imperative to get the damaged wood out of the forest as quickly as possible in order to stem the tide of bug infestation that is the forest natural clean up crew. Bug infestation is nature’s way of cleaning up the mess in a long and slow process, but the bug’s don’t just work their magic on dead wood. Once the cycle begins, the insects multiply with the plentiful resource and can get into whole stands. Millions of acres could get infected from where they begin in dead stands only to bore into live,healthy trees to raise even more families. This cycle leads to more dead wood in the forest both fallen on the ground and standing dead timber. The threat of fire also increases with the amount of fuel strewn about with the damaged trees. Dead trees can ignite easily once dried out. Imagine your house experiencing a small kitchen fire with the room right next door stacked with cans full of gasoline. That small fire could turn into an annihilating inferno with a small spark.

Storm cleanup is expected to continue until any trees that are salvageable for timber is brought out of the woods perhaps another six months, weather permitting.

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