Dean and Carol Creswell were having dinner at the Skyline when Thursday’s storm hit.
A tree blew down and knocked out power to the restaurant. The power line landed on a pickup truck.
“We drove around a little bit and tried to come home,” Carol said. That was about 5 p.m.
“There were limbs all over the highway,” Dean said.
“It looked like a tree farm,” Carol said.
When they got home, there were limbs blocking the driveway that had to be moved before they could get into their home on Highway 228.
Two trees fell across their chicken house and smashed their chain link fence.
From that point until power was restored Sunday on Highway 228, they had no heat of any kind.
“One thing about it,” Carol said. “We’re tough enough.”
She spent a whole winter in Great Falls, Mont.
“It was cold when power went out,” Carol said. She also spent time in a one-room cabin in Eastern Oregon.
When they got home, they surveyed the damage, Dean said. Now, the patio has no roof, and the roof is off the garage. A second vehicle was dented by a falling limb.
That night, they called the claims office with Farmer’s Insurance and are now waiting for an adjuster to appraise the damage, Dean said. The deductible is what’s going to hurt.
After that, “we just sat here and froze,” Dean said. They went to bed about 9 p.m. instead of the usual 10 p.m.
The next morning, “we didn’t want to get out of bed,” Dean said. That morning, they got a chance to look at the damage in better light, then “we drove around to see the damage” in the area.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Dean said. He was “shocked. I couldn’t believe the homes that were smashed.”
“I can’t believe how lucky we were,” Carol said. She described the misfortunes visible throughout Sweet Home, Corky’s Holiday House, homes in South Fork Trailer Park and others.
At her home, Carol said, a fir tree has three large trunks. Two of them point right at her house, but they didn’t fall.
“We have felt really fortunate with all that,” Carol said.
After driving around Sweet Home, Dean and Carol drove to Lebanon to talk to their Realtor, who is selling their home then grab a hot meal at KFC.
They returned to Sweet Home and visited Dean’s sister.
They didn’t eat at home at all. Sunday, Dean’s sister had planned chili for them.
Still, they toughed out the power outage in their home.
“A lot of people have offered us a place to stay,” Dean said.
“We’re just idiot enough to enjoy this rather than complain about it,” Carol said. Saturday night, they planned to sit up until bed time, then just go to bed.