Some Consequences Of Logging

Winter wind storms are just as common here as our glorious summers, and by the end of October each year we start removing deck furniture and anything else that might blow away. The old Adirondack chair that we keep on the edge of the bluff has a rope tied through a hole in one of it's legs which is in turn tied to a large fir tree, but it's far enough away from the house and the rope is short enough that it can't inflict any damage.

Our wind storms generally whip up slowly and come from the south. The islands' banked shorelines serve as a wind tunnel, and as the storms build into a fury we can hear fir branches landing on the roof and hitting the screens on the windows. After the first year we gave up trying to replace screens. Once the wind starts it's just a matter of time before the electricity goes out. It's never "if" the electricity goes out, it's always "when".  

In a wind storm red alders are the biggest danger, and in the Northwest they are known as junk trees because they snap easily in the wind, shatter, and scatter their parts. At least firs, although shedding occasional branches, usually come down in tact, in one direction. The danger from fir trees is that because they have a shallow root system they blow over fairly easily, roots and all, if a gust hits just right, but a forest or heavily wooded acreage of firs gets strength from its sheer numbers and density. When the wind hits the ones in front it breaks the force of it for the weaker ones in back.

Sometimes instead of clear cutting an area a logger will take only the commercially valuable trees, which are the mature Douglas firs. This is sometimes worse than clear cutting, for now the protection the younger trees derived from the mature trees is no longer available and become vulnerable, seldom lasting beyond that first prolonged gust. 

A few years ago some vacant property about a quarter of a mile down the road from us was sold, but before it was put on the market it was logged of all the valuable trees--a common occurrence--leaving nothing but a few junk trees and some very young firs. That year we had a bad wind storm early in November, and David and I were awakened by the increasing hissing intensity of fir branches being whipped in the strong wind. Our wind gage said gusts were up to 60 m.p.h. We're always concerned about the two firs on the edge of our bank overlooking the sound, which are about 50-75 years old, for if they were uprooted the chances were very good they would land directly on our house. But they've been there a long time and have lived through many storm seasons so we always knock on wood and hope for the best. 

As we looked out our bedroom deck doors that night to watch our bank firs bending precariously in the wind, their black branches gesticulating wildly against the dark grey velvet sky, we heard the unmistakable sharp crack that we've come to recognize as a tree snapping off and crashing to the ground. We ducked, reflexively, then ran to a front window and saw what we first thought was a fireworks display, but then realized was a tree that had taken down a power pole, cutting off our own power. We got through to the power company on our cell phones and they came that night to move the live wires off the road. But the next morning we saw it would be some time before anyone could even drive this road again, for it had happened on the newly logged vacant property. One of a couple of mature firs the logger, for some reason, had left standing had been uprooted and taken down the power pole first, then came eight or nine much younger firs. Those trees had lived through storms just as strong, but they'd had the forest of stronger ones in front of them. Now they had no protection and blew over like matchsticks.

Some years later, when the island had gone through an unusually rapid growth, which necessarily means extensive logging, another strong wind storm took down power lines all over. Almost without exception the trees that were blown down that year were the ones left by indiscriminate logging. That time we were out of power for three days.