We're Back!

Online, that is. The storms started here Thursday evening and built to hurricane force at times by Friday. No surprises: we lost power. Lights went out at 9 am on Friday and we just now got the electricity restored at 5 pm on Monday. Our wind gauge gave up but two nearby locations - Boulder Creek and Los Gatos - recorded gusts of 56 mph and 89 mph respectively.

Rain? Got plenty of that. When all was said and done, we collected 10.2 inches over the three days/three storms that blew through.

Damage? We had a small roof leak that I'll have to investigate at the weekend and after a quick look around there is a lot of tree debris lying around the place. Still, we did better than one of our neighbours. Their daughter's SUV was parked under a redwood and quite literally was speared by a tree branch that came straight down from near the top of what's a 70 foot tree. The limb went clear though the windscreen, demolished the dashboard and dented the roof. It's likely a write off at this stage.

Other travails? There's a mudslide on a road leading to our house that brought it down to one lane but really we look to have got off lightly considering the strength of the winds.

Anyway, we are just grateful to now have power back, especially as they are threatening another storm here tomorrow (though thankfully nothing to compare with what we just had).

2008 is starting off with a bang, at least weather-wise!