Anyone remember the storms of 1995 and 1996? (Forest Grove, Gladstone: transporting, houses, buying)

[tablemtn]

Fall 1995 was the big windstorm. The February 1996 was the big flood. I was looking for photos of those events on the internet recently, and was surprised to find that Wikipedia has a page on the '96 floods:

Watery times in the northwest

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/75/Orflood96.jpg/400px-Orflood96.jpg (broken link)

[tiffela74]

Thanks for posting this!!! I remember them both, but as I was in my barely early 20s then, I was pretty self-absorbed and only recall what affected me and mine then. Plus, at that point, i really didnt have anything to lose, so it was more of a big adventure than anything to me. Im sure nowdays, it would be a whole different story.
I do remember trying to get a friend home during the flooding, and her town (Forest Grove) was blocked off because the water was waaay over the road into town. I remember watching the emergency crews transporting people in trouble over the roadway in a boat.
I do still have video tapes from the local news during the flooding. I remember saving them in case i had kids that might be interested in them someday.

[Rosa canina]

I recall looking out the window and seeing my son and another boy going down the street in a raft.

[Waterlily]

I was living in eastern Oregon during that time. The effects of the storm were a little different there. Some buildings and homes had flooding problems. A lot of the problem had to do with rain coming down and melting the snow on the ground. That made even more water flowing.

[Pharaoh07]

I remember the windstorm well. Classes at Gladstone High School were suddenly cut short and my friend and I walked home through a small forest. The next day, many of the huge trees had been knocked down, and my friend's neighbor had a tree fall on their house. Quite an exciting time for a fifteen year old!

[PNW-type-gal]

Our 24' sailboat was moored on the Columbia River and we got to watch news footage of a raft of boats (including what we thought was ours), break loose and float down the river, to the opposite side. Cable was out, and we were using a 30 year old black-and-white TV with an antennae to get the news. On a color TV, we'd have known it wasn't our boat.

But the week after, Marine Drive along the Columbia River was closed to truck and car traffic (some concerns about high water levels and vibration along the levee), and we got a special pass to go down and check on the boat. We joined a huge group of people walking up and down Marine Drive, river-watching on a beautiful, clear day. I've often thought that that should be a once-a-year repeat block party, closing the road from I-205 to say the golf course.

Somewhere on youtube is the footage of the fools in a pickup up in the West Hills trying to outrun a landslide, which is also amusing.

The wind storm this last winter did more damage in this area, ripping shingles off of houses, and dropping trees right and left. One of the house down the street looking like one of those Steve Martin joke hats, with the arrow coming out either side - the house had about 50 feet of Doug fir sticking out of either side of it.

[dogpaw]

96 was the year I moved. I remember it well. What I also remember is being in the Fred Meyer's and people in line buying frozen pizza's, candles and beer. It struck me as odd because we had no power at our house. that was a pretty bad storm. My dad lived off of 122nd and was not able to get out for awhile because of the high waters.