People who’ve lived in Borrego Springs, California, for a while have probably experienced their fair share of high wind events. For me, just over a year in, this was the strongest one I’ve seen since moving to the desert.
The forecast for February 18 called for gusts up to 65 miles per hour. By mid-morning, the wind was steady and had become very loud.
I was at my desk trying to work, but concentrating wasn’t easy. The sound kept building, and when I looked out the window, I could see bits of debris lifting and spinning through the yard. At one point it honestly looked like a small funnel forming just beyond my office window.
I grabbed my camera to get some video and posted a bit of it on YouTube.
Then I went back to work. I tried to finish a round of copy edits I was plugging away at (I’m a Managing Editor for a digital marketing firm). Content review is difficult to focus on when the house sounds like it’s being sandblasted.
I was about 15 minutes in when I heard a crack. Followed by a heavy thud.
I looked outside and immediately noticed something wasn’t right with the Mesquite tree in the front yard.
We’ve had a tree hit a house before (years ago when we lived in Portland, Oregon) so my first thought was the roof. When I went outside to get a closer look, I saw that the entire top of the Mesquite was gone. Thankfully, the roof was untouched.
The top of the tree had been blown around the side of the house and landed directly on the 10-foot cactus my husband and I spent months pruning so it would look nice from the street. Several arms were bent and split. It took a hard hit. Another big gust later lifted the tree top off the cactus and blew it even further away, which is why you don’t see the Mesquite debris in this picture.
The wind continued most of the afternoon. I kept glancing outside, watching what was left of the Mesquite sway sharply in both directions. I expected the rest of it to give way. It didn’t.
The neighbors call this “the magic tree,” at least according to an elderly woman who introduced herself when my husband and I first moved into our home in Borrego Springs. She told me it had been there forever and had already survived more than one close call.
Our poor Mesquite was in much better shape before this week; here’s what it looked like a few months back when we were trimming it. And if you’re noticing the fencing, no, that didn’t get wiped out by the storm. It was old and rickety, so we removed it a couple of months ago.
The Mesquite and cactus weren’t the only things at our home impacted by the storm. A ceramic fire pit was blown off a patio table and shattered into pieces. A shutter tore loose from the shed. The pool and hot tub filled with leaves and grit.
One neighbor lost part of their roofing, and pieces of it landed in our yard. Earlier in the day, I had watched some of it lift and tumble past my window.
There will be more wind like this. That’s part of living in Borrego Springs.
What I’m not sure about is the future of the magic tree. It’s leaning farther now, and you can see where the roots have started pulling up from the soil. If we get another storm like this, or even a heavy rain, I’m not convinced it will stay upright.
I don’t love the idea of cutting it down after everything it’s survived. But I also don’t want to wait until it makes the decision for us.
If anyone reading this is an arborist, I’d truly appreciate your thoughts. 😊
Leave a Reply