A straight-line wind or possible “bomb cyclone” blew through Sunnyside Campground, toppling over trees and damaging one RV trailer Sunday evening.
Camp hosts Randy Folck and Regina Rinehart had just ended their season at Sunnyside and were heading to their next gig near Detroit, but when they pulled onto Quartzville Road, four trees toppled on top of their rig.
“It had just started raining, and by the time we pulled out at the stop sign, it was hailing and then we pull up the road to leave and all the sudden – trees. It was scary,” Rinehart said.
Folck was in a truck that pulled their RV, while Rinehart followed behind in her car.
“I seen it happen. The trees were so big and they were comin’ down,” she said. “It was weird because there was no twister; it was just like this huge wind gust.”
According to Folck, four trees landed on them at pretty much the same time. One hit between the truck’s back window and RV, while the other three landed on the RV from end to end.
“It was loud,” Folck said. “It sounded like a shotgun going off in the cab.”
Rinehart said she yelled at Folck to get out of there quickly, and then she returned to Sunnyside to secure a chainsaw. They cut up the trees, which were spread across the road, so she could drive out of the area.
One branch had pierced the RV and stood sort of upright and off to the side. While the RV sustained large dents and several holes, the couple are still able to live inside with a tarp over the top. The truck, which belonged to a friend and sustained back window damage from the tree, is getting repaired before they finish their trip to Detroit. Rinehart said one man who heard about their plight has offered to help fix the roof.
“The community around here is really great,” Rinehart said.
Meanwhile, Chantel and Donnie Eagon, also camp hosts at Sunnyside, had their own story to share about the freak event.
It was about 3:30 p.m. or so when the Eagons returned from an errand in town. There was a “torrential” downpour of rain at the time, but it had stopped when Chantel was finished putting her groceries away. Then, she said, it was “totally calm.”
A couple hours later, at about 5:30 p.m., the couple heard a thunderous boom.
“Just one big boom, but it was super loud,” Chantel said. “Then we saw a flash of lightning. Then the wind started picking up a little bit.”
The two went outside to secure their awning, but Chantel retreated back inside while Donnie went to tighten up their outdoor fully-enclosed canopy.
“All of a sudden the wind picked up that quick,” she said, snapping her fingers. “The wind caught the door, slammed it up against the RV. I could barely grab it to pull it back in. As I’m pulling it back in, it’s pouring like torrential downpours, and the wind – you could hear the wind – it sounded like a freight train was coming through.”
The Eagons have seen their fair share of windy, stormy weather – from Santa Ana winds in the Mojave Desert to hailstorms at Crane Prairie in Bend – so they were already prepared with a well-secured canopy. Still, Donnie could see the risk of losing the plastic-curtained structure as the wind tried to push through its north wall, so he stayed inside, grabbed the frame and used his body to essentially hold the canopy in place.
“I was hanging from the frame and I was facing out the window looking at everything flying past me, trying to hold that wall from pillowing in,” he said. “Then pinecones started hitting this thing and it sounded like I was being shot at.”
Chantel said debris was going “every which way;” there seemed to be no particular direction the wind was headed as it piled tree bits on top of the RV and all over the ground. The lichens and debris were flying around so fast that she thought it was golfball-sized hail coming down. Then a big branch hit the top of the RV, flew off and flew around in circles, then landed.
Suffering with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), Chantel buried herself into the nose of the RV and under nearly a dozen pillows and all the blankets she could gather, with her small dog, Lily, clutched in her arms.
“The pine cones started coming down and hitting the sides of the RV, the tops, and it sounded like somebody was out here with an automatic shotgun,” she said.
The storm, which lasted only a few minutes, blew through Sunnyside Campground, toppling over about 10 evergreen trees, Linn County Communications Director Alex Paul said. The Linn County Parks crew was able to clean up the fallen trees within a day, and road crews took care of fallen trees off Quartzville Road.
One of two ice freezers was also apparently toppled backward three times, landing on its face. On Monday morning, crews continued to break down the fallen trees and burn off piles of debris.
“It came so quickly, and then it left so quickly,” Chantel said. “It was fast and furious.”