Island blown into dark ages

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, December 16, 2006

A woman escapes unscathed as winds topple a fir onto her newly remodeled home.

On Thursday, nearing the end of a four-year remodel, Murphy Davis snugged the final piece of sheetrock into place at her High School Road home.

Early Friday morning, with a snap and a thud amid a flurry of needles, the wrath of one grisly gust undid her handiwork.

“It was perfect,” Davis said of her sheetrock job, adding a conciliatory chuckle before another look at the scene robbed her of words.

In front of her, on the lot where she’s lived off and on for the past 30 years, lay the wreckage of her home, sawed in half by the girth of a fallen fir.

Workers — summoned by friends from two island construction crews — scrambled over shingles as they stretched a tarp across the gaping hole. Certainty would have to wait until Monday, when Davis’ insurance company was to tell her how much of the damage would be covered.

She still mustered a smile, humbled by the work of the altruistic assembly atop her roof.

“It hasn’t hit me yet,” she said. “I’m in a daze. I can laugh about it. But I’ll be crying tomorrow.”

Similar fates befell at least four other island homes hit by trees during a storm that whiplashed the region and left more than one million Puget Sound residents without power.

Police and fire officials said no one on Bainbridge was hurt as a result of the 70 mph winds and slashing rains, though fallen trees closed at least a dozen roads and left most without electricity.

Puget Sound Energy spokesman Dennis Smedsrood on Friday afternoon didn’t know exactly how many customers were still in the dark, but said it could take crews several days to restore service.

Crews had been at the ready Thursday night, but damage in the Cascades to more than 80 transmission lines – which help feed local power – must first be repaired.

“If they take a hit, we all suffer for it,” Smedsrood said.

The company sent several helicopters and a Snowcat to clear the way for repair crews Friday, but inclement weather continues to hamper efforts.

Island fire crews, meanwhile, worked with city crews to clear blocked roads, but in many cases had to wait for the power company to untangle trees from dangerous wires.

“We got as many of the easy ones cleared as we could,” said fire Operations Chief Luke Carpenter. “But you have to be careful with the wires.”

Some residents tried to remove downed lines themselves, Carpenter said, though he discouraged people from doing so even in areas without electricity.

The fire department received some 75 calls over a 24-hour period, many of them reports of fallen wires. About two dozen firefighters worked through the night, breaking for only a few hours, for safety, during the peak of storm.

“Most people were in bed by that time,” Carpenter said. “We only wanted to send out help if there was a serious emergency.”

Carpenter said the whole island sustained damage, but things were particularly harrowing on the north and east sides of the island.

His assessment jibed with that of Deputy Police Chief Mark Duncan, who said a police cruiser was temporarily trapped down a road blocked on the south end of the island.

Several collisions were reported at the height of the rain, including one in which a police car was rear-ended. The officer was uninjured, but went to the hospital as a precaution.

“I think a lot of people stayed off the roads,” Duncan said. “In general, drivers have been behaving pretty well.”

He reminded people to treat powerless stoplights as four-way stops, and asked people to heed barricades, which were erected for a reason.

“Some people have been going around them,” he said, “only to find that a tree is down around the corner.”

Next to the police station, at the intersection of Winslow Way and State Route 305, off-loading ferry traffic inched its way through the darkened intersection. Traffic crawled elsewhere as well, as large queues piled up at each stoplight along the highway.

Meanwhile, along needle-strewn High School Road, curious motorists slowed as they passed by Davis’ mangled home.

Upon word of the trouble, contractors Jack Colegrove and Brad Yberra, both friends of Davis, left their construction sites behind to help with the salvage operation. They and their crews removed the fallen tree and chopped it into pieces near the edge of the roadway. All that was left then was to seal the gash with the large tarp that would provide a temporary barrier between Davis’ home and the elements. Pausing briefly from his work, Colegrove expressed his sympathy, saying it was the least he could do to help an old friend.

“I’ve known Murphy for a long time,” Colegrove said. “I just hope she’ll be able to rebuild.”

Davis, shrugging, said she would.

“I have to,” she said. “This is my home.”

At the time of impact, Davis was sleeping away the wee hours of Friday’s half of the storm.

“All I heard was breaking glass,” she said. “Then I went out and saw a tree in my hallway.”

She and her friend were the only two home at the time; neither were injured.

But in the afternoon calm, as she prepared to spend the weekend at a local motel, Davis could only wonder what would become of her long-time home, the recent recipient of a now-ruined remodel.

She felt fortunate that half of the home was left untouched, divided in the middle by a large support beam.

Equally fortunate, she said, was the generosity displayed by her friends, neighbors and fellow-islanders.

“I’ve lived here since I was five years old,” she said. “People say the island has changed, and in some ways it has. It’s more crowded, traffic’s worse, it’s harder to find a parking spot.

“But to have people help like this is unbelievable.”

Davis, again smiling, gestured incredulously at the swarm of workers in her yard.

“It hasn’t changed,” she said. “This is still a fabulous island.”