News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Ominous black clouds gave warning that Sisters was in for a drenching on Wednesday, September 10. Lights flickered and the freshening wind from the south carried the distant muttering of thunder.
Finally, at about 4 p.m., the storm struck. Crashing thunder frightened pedestrians. Jagged chains of lightning stabbed out of the brooding sky, leaving the pungent scent of ozone.
The clouds burst with a pelting, drenching rain that soaked the unwary as they leapt across sidewalks from curb to door. For an hour, rainwaters ran hub-deep in the gutters.
One lightning strike hit some insulators at St. Helens and Ash streets, putting two wires on the ground and opening two fuses.
According to Jim Crowell of Central Electric, 125 accounts lost power, some for 2-1/2 hours. Several strikes in Cloverdale forced CEC to replace two transformers.
The barrage was short-lived, but it left its mark. A tall ponderosa pine in Sisters City Park bears scars where a lightning bolt spiraled down the trunk. A juniper tree in a Cloverdale back yard exploded, rent by a direct hit.
Gradually, the rain tapered off and the grumble of thunder faded away to the north as the sun descended.
A breeze tore the clouds, opening the sky, leaving Sisters bathed in starlight and the scent of wet sage.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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