Wasn't It a Mighty Time!

On Sep 8, 1900, a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 217 km/hr struck the Gulf Coast of Texas at Galveston. In the ensuing storm and flood, between 6,000 and 12,000 people perished. Out of this disaster came several songs in folklore. One of these, The Galveston Flood, has the refrain:


"Wasn't it a mighty time;

When the storm winds struck our town!"


Well, on Jan 10, 2010, a wind storm of mythic proportions swept over Poas volcano from the north and slammed the ridges above Grecia, where we live. All day and all night, great curtains of rain and mist swept down the slopes, twisting, turning, lifting, spinning and spiralling down on us. Our two storey wooden cabina has a metal roof and stands just on the lee side of a grove of 100 foot pine trees. As the wind storm intensified, a hail of pine needles, pine cones, twigs and branches rattled down on our roof with the explosiveness of gunshots. After a few minutes in our upstairs bedroom, we opted to move to the downstairs bedroom, with an earth enbankment outside our window and an extra floor between us and potentially falling limbs, or even trees. The staccato of gunfire on our roof continued while the moaning roar of the disconsolate wind made the tree tops dance.

In the morning, the storm continued and during breakfast we heard a great crashing whump! Outside our side window, a 40 foot tree top sheared its way down from above and landed, neatly, parallel to our side veranda. A near miss.










When the storm let up, our yard was littered with boughs, limbs, cones, pine needle bunches and branches of all sizes. A major cleanup is to follow, after these January winds stop - which may be another week or so! All is not sunshine and tranquillity in the tropics.