Pullman residents were left picking up the pieces of a rare major windstorm after it passed through the city on Dec. 17, shutting down campus while most of the students were home for the holidays.
Trees were knocked over, power outages occurred throughout the town, and property damage caused residents to slow down right before Christmas.
Pullman residents Gaard Anderson and Allison Anderson were grateful to not be significantly affected, while some of their close friends faced no such luck.
The couple had not seen anything like this in December in the eight years they have lived in Pullman. The rarity of the windstorm caught them off their guard when it woke them up hours earlier than they normally would.
Allison, a Lightcast client success manager, worked remotely to avoid going into the office. Trees and debris littered the roads. Allison said it was safer to stay home that day.
Gaard works for a church in Pullman that meets on campus when classes are in session and in an office in town during the offseasons. The roof faced damages during the storm that will need repairs as soon as possible but his place of work was otherwise not affected.
“We got really lucky. Our power just flickered on and off, but we got lucky,” said Gaard. “Our friends had a tree fall through the roof and put a hole in their kids’ room.”
The Andersons had plans to leave later in the week, so their travel plans were not affected. They stayed inside all day on Dec. 17, the safest option.
Gaard said that the storm affected the entire community in the Palouse.
“People had some serious damage caused to their houses, which caused the Palouse to slow down for a couple days to regroup after the storm,” said Gaard.
The windstorm left Pullman with uprooted trees all over town, including Sunnyside Park and in front of Beasley Coliseum. Winds reached over 80 mph, which tore flags and damaged homes on and off campus.
Residents are working as a community to get life back to normal as they repair and regroup after a storm that affected the entire town.
With the winds dying down since, the community was left with a reminder of what they have as they help rebuild what friends and neighbors may have lost.
