Stormy Weather

The latest tropical storm to form in recorded history is now in the Atlantic, dubbed Zeta. Good thing the year is ending, they've even run out of Greek letters. What's next? Perhaps they can sell the naming rights, like they do for stadiums and everything else. Might have problems finding sponsors, though.

The storms that are hitting us one after the other on the West Coast are officially nameless, though people here are calling them all sorts of names. At the moment, here on the far northern California coast, we're about twelve hours into the latest storm, though it's difficult to say exactly when the last one ended and this one started. And separating this one from the next one, due early Sunday, will probably be even harder.

We get very little in the way of thunderstorms here, although there were some significant rumbles a few days ago. But last night the wind sounded like continuous thunder.

These are the worst storms we've experienced here since the year we arrived, in 1996. Now as then they show us how fragile our connections with the rest of the world are, in this still isolated corner of the country. We have only one north-south highway, 101(four-lane in places but often two lane), and lesser roads through mountains connecting us with the real north-south highway 5. Right now highway 5 is closed in Oregon, and 101 north of us is closed just south of Crescent City, while 101 south is frequently closed at the aptly named Confusion Hill, which is our mainline to Santa Rosa, San Francisco, etc.

The road closings are usually due to mudslides, sometimes to fallen trees, and sometimes to flooding. Right now Humboldt County is officially in a state of emergency. Rivers are at a 7 year high, and the many creeks are the most proximate threat of flooding in most areas where people live. But the Klamath to the north is especially in danger of serious flooding.

Another feature of our isolation and relatively small population in a mostly rural and not so prosperous area is that local news is not so easy to come by. The web sites of the major local daily is down at the moment, and the site of the only local TV station with a functioning news department is way out of date. Another newspaper, about to go daily, is keeping its site pretty current. And thanks to the Clear Channelization of radio, few local radio stations have local reporting capability. Our closest public radio station is having trouble staying on the air, problems with its transmitting tower I gather.

So far only a few brief power failures. But I expect I'll be testing this laptop's battery capabilities before this is all over.