Windstorm does damage in Sisters

High winds that roared through the Sisters Country on Friday, November 11 uprooted and broke trees, some of which fell on cars and houses, and drove a rare mid-November forest fire.

Janna Brown's stepdaughter and her family were staying at a vacation home in Black Butte Ranch when the top of a ponderosa pine broke in the high wind and plunged through the roof and, as Brown put it, "stuck through the floor like a lance."

Debris from the ceiling and glass from a broken window showered down.

It was a near miss.

"My grandson, who is 11, had been sitting watching TV in almost that very spot 10 minutes before."

The family stayed the night in a neighbor's cabin. The windstorm proved to be very unlucky for a visitor in Camp Sherman, 21-year-old Emily Hajarizadeh. A large pine fell directly onto her car, completely crushing it. She and her friends were safe, but shocked. Unnerved by the wind, they chose to vacate the cabin in the woods where they were staying and "camped" with the Heidi Fernandez family, though they were without power.

"An hour earlier, we'd had a near miss of our own," Fernandez reported. "Driving out of Camp Sherman around 6:30 p.m. we were the first to come across a tree downed across the 14 Road. Swerving, we were able to bump over the central part of the tree without damage to our car. Moments later a car coming into Camp Sherman did likewise. We, and a couple from the second car, removed as much of the downed limbs as possible from the roadway, but placed a call to the sheriff for removal of the remaining trunk."

Nicole Montalvo reported a near miss in the City of Sisters:

"Friday night, around 7:45 p.m. one of the big ponderosa pine trees came crashing down on Maple Street and fell into Green Ridge. Luckily nobody got hurt. I was walking my dog when it happened, just on the other side of the tree! It was loud, so several neighbors came running out.

"Since I work for public works, I called Andy Duran, the crew supervisor, who called Doug McIntosh. Doug was on call that night. It took the three of us about 2-1/2 hours to cut the tree, remove the big stumps and most of the debris."

A Forest Service slash pile burning task turned into an understory burn late on Friday as winds picked up and stirred the fire.

Local residents reported the fire, which remained on National Forest land and did not threaten any structures.