A Winter Storm, in Context

--written during 2023 Winter Storm Mara.

Sometimes, something happens that changes how you think about your world. For my daughter, who is 13, that happened this week.?

She has been inconsolable all day.?

You see, we are slowly emerging from what was supposed to be a once in a lifetime ice storm. Several days of freezing rain and below freezing temperatures that wrought havoc on the roadways for drivers, closed schools and businesses, canceled flights, cut off electricity (and heat) for hundreds of thousands and caused potentially billions of dollars in damages. It will likely create openings for political - and cynical - opportunists to highlight the failings exposed as the ice melted and cash in.??

We know this will happen. It has happened before. But it isn’t supposed to. Our home is located in zone 8 - 9. Gardeners will recognize that this is the rough guide created long ago by the USDA to help planters understand which plants will do well in the local climate. The average winter temperatures in Zone 8-9 are supposed to dip to about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The native flora are adaptable, hardy species.

That was before. When the region could count on as much rain each year as fell in Seattle. When our rainy season lasted from late November-February, filling aquifers and swimming holes and keeping ancient creeks running. When a slow and steady Spring delighted with sweeping vistas of wildflowers, the hills and cliffs and the wide open spaces painted in hundreds of colors from the soft pastels to the flagrant reds and oranges. When our summers generally ranged from the 80’s in June to the mid-to-high 90’s at the peak. We could expect a few days over 100 degrees but the weather reliably broke by mid-late September.?

Now, Spring rushes by. Wildflowers have become sparse. The joyful green of newly sprouted wild grasses fades to burnished gold within days. Summer hits hard and fast. It can be in full swing by late April. The 100 degree days descend in late May and early June, creeping to the 5’s, even 10’s as the calendar moves toward August and September. The rain stops. The sun bakes everything brittle and dries up gardens, creeks, swimming holes. Trees drop leaves way too early, but they have to conserve what they can to survive to the next year. Animals creep into backyards searching for water or food or a cool spot to escape the relentless heat. Squirrels flatten themselves on tree branches and in the grass - splooting it’s called, although they do look slightly spatch-cocked - and birds desperately search for enough dew in the early hours to make it through the day.?

The dust piles in small mounds and spreads like a tablecloth over every outdoor surface. When the winds blow, they are no longer gentle breezes. They puff and bluster like cranky old men and blast all that dust into eyes, noses, under doors and windows into any crevice they can find. The only creatures that seem to enjoy the summer any longer are the fire ants, busily expanding their empire. Even the scorpions and snakes move indoors, squeezing through pipes or electric outlets searching for shelter from the heat.?

The heat breaks in late October now, sometimes November. The rain cannot be relied upon. And then comes winter. An unreliable beast at best, veering from the low 80’s to the 30’s, 20’s within hours, hanging around just long enough to gravely wound citrus trees and less-hardy palms. Then rising again to 50, 60, 70, waking bees who should know better, as they bumble from one dormant plant to another, and risk everything for nectar that doesn’t exist.

Then falls the really bitter cold. The polar vortex or the off-kilter jet stream. Before, such cold descended every few years. Now, it sweeps down once or twice a season. And the devastation. It is stunning. Great sugar elms and 200 year old live oaks bent double by ice weighing the equivalent of a small Toyota. Branches snap. This week, so did entire trees. Because not only were they bearing the weight of the ice, but the weight of the swinging temperatures, too little water, too many people, bolder pests, invasive species, and the increasingly frequent freezes and ice storms.?The cumulative effects of a changing climate.

This year, those combined to demolish my daughter’s childhood sanctuary. A great twisted live oak whose presence hid the house from Google's cameras and announced our address to friends. Whose leafy branches provided a canopy of shade even on the hottest days, into whose crooked limbs she would climb with a water bottle, a book, a snack and her phone. Where she would sit for hours reading and listening and dreaming and writing, ignoring the mosquitoes that whined, the ants that crawled and the birds that pooped. It was the place she went when she wanted to be alone, or when she wanted to have fun, hanging upside down from the branches, draping Halloween ghosts in the fall, holiday lights in the winter and even pastel eggs in the spring.

We were woken Wednesday to the sound of a great rending. A groan followed by a cascade of what sounded like pellets, a grinding and then a thump that resonated through the house, causing the cats to hide and the dogs to rush to the door, barking as if there were demons at the door. One great limb had fallen, leaving a 3-foot gaping wound where it had twisted off the trunk. As the day went on, and the ice kept building, a hundred more limbs fell off a dozen more trees and trunks snapped in half, the tops fallen drunkenly over what was left of their bases. The more branches that fell, strangely, the quieter the next collapse. Because so many limbs blanketed the ground they muffled the sound of the next limb falling.?

And then, after midnight, there was a sound distinct from the rest. The kind of sound you don’t hear as much as you feel. A mere ripple, a whoosh, a change of pressure that brought me to my feet and running to the window. I looked into the darkness, and there on the porch and the yard and the roof, was the rest of the great oak twisted into an unrecognizable mess. Its once sheltering branches wrapped around each other, around the trunk and around the house.

Today, as the ice rained around him and the branches continued to snap and crackle and pop, my husband and his friend cut up the trunk of another oak - this one a youngster, perhaps only 100 years old - that had fallen across the driveway. I had to get out to get some provisions and equipment so we could start cleaning up. When I got home, I saw my daughter, standing at the center of the great and tall pile of detritus, all that was left of her monumental oak. She was crying great heaping sobs and cradling a piece of the tree. I called out to her, but she didn’t hear me.?

I left her to mourn alone.?

#climatechange #icestorm #winter #liveoak #winterstormmara #winterstorm