Wind smites Sisters

A mischievous wind howled through Sisters on Tuesday, February 2. It shattered trees, blocked roads and damaged homes.

A gust to 75 miles per hour at 3 p.m. pulled the steel roof from Ponderosa Heating and Cooling in the Sisters Industrial Park. A section of the flying roof draped over utility lines. The resulting electrical surge damaged phones, fax machines and computers in the neighborhood.

"Our dumpster had blown overwe went out to pick everything up before it ended up everyone else's yard," said Bill Spezza, who owns Ponderosa Heating with his wife, Kathy.

"My fishing boat was up on its side and we decided to go tie it down. About that time, along came a real intense gust of wind. I heard a noise I was unfamiliar with. The roof rippled from one end of the building to the other. As soon as it rippled, it just peeled off in one piece," said Spezza.

At first, Spezza thought just the west side of the roof had blown off. When he walked around the building, he could see that all of the metal was gone.

"It blew into the power lines. Then it got real excitingone of the lines burned off and hit the ground and started a small fire. A ball of electricity was dancing up and down the wires, almost overhead from where we were standing," said Spezza.

The surge took out two phones, a fax machine and one of the surge protectors on a computer at Ponderosa Heating, but the computer itself was not damaged.

The building, completed six years ago in October, was sold by Bill and Kathy Spezza two years ago to Dick and Sharon Mooney. Workmen were at the site almost immediately to assess and prevent further damage, Kathy Spezza said.

The power surge also damaged electronic equipment at Sisters Storage and Rental, owned by Rod and Connie Morris.

"We had a couple of pieces that got zapped," said Rod Morris. "The UHAUL computer had flames coming out of it. The fax machine was smoking," Morris said.

"Everything (just) electrical was fine, but things that we didn't have protection on got it through the phone lines."

Morris said that surge protectors on one phone outlet, as well as electric outlets, saved other equipment.

"I should have had (surge protectors) on all of them. If it gotten the other computers it would have been troublesome," said Morris. Those computers host the company's bookkeeping and records.

The control unit of the phone system at Sisters Storage was fried. After Pat Seile of US WEST repaired the exterior lines, the multi-line system had to be bypassed until the unit could be replaced.

"The insurance adjuster is coming next week," said Morris.

According to Jim Crowell, Membership Services Director for Central Electric Co-op, the windstorm didn't cause any widespread outages. But spot problems kept crews busy from about 1 p.m. The Wizard Falls Fish hatchery in Camp Sherman had the longest interruption of service.

"At about 9:30 or 10 p.m., (General Foreman John Ragland) pulled them out because trees were continuing to drop and it was dark. He thought it was too dangerous for them to remain in the area," said Crowell.

"They were back out there the next morning at 6 a.m. Wizard Falls is kind of at the end of the line, and they have been through this before. They are very understanding," Crowell said.

Problems would have been much worse if it hadn't been for preventative maintenance, according to Crowell.

"Tree trimming has eliminated a lot of outages. You just don't get branches into the lines. This year we had a number of large trees from out of the right-of-way that came down and took lines out, but of course, we can't touch those," said Crowell.

Deschutes County Sheriff's Deputy Todd Williver said that most of the damage occurred in a "space of about 40 minutes."

"I saw dumpsters get tipped over. You know the wind is strong when it will tip over a dumpster," said Williver.

In addition to the lost roof and subsequent power outage, several trees came down, one on the house of the Dave Moyer family on Washington Avenue.

Another smashed into a home at Black Butte Ranch, and a home in Crossroads, according to the deputy (see story, p. 18).

"I think State Highway (ODOT) had a couple more trees up on the Santiam pass," said Williver.

"We had a tree that completely blocked Highway 20 just west of Ray's Food Place. ODOT (Oregon Department of Transportation) was out there immediately with their plow and reopened the highway. We ended up with one tree across 242, just east of Crossroads, that blocked the entire highway. One tree was down at the Hood Avenue extension and 242," Williver said.

Despite the mayhem, no one was hurt. Deputy Williver said the blowing sections of roof sheetcould have been lethal.

According to Shift Captain Thornton Brown at the Sisters/Camp Sherman RFPD, no one needed medical attention because of the wind.