A Deadly Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm

257 Pages·2018·9.279 MB·English

by  John Dodge

A DeADly WinD

A Deadly Wind
The 1962 Columbus Day Storm
John DoDge
Oregon State University Press Corvallis
Cover: The collapse of the Campbell Hall bell tower at the Oregon College of
Education, now Western Oregon University, in Monmouth, Oregon, was the
Columbus Day Storm image seen around the world. (Photo by Wes Luchau)
Share your storm stories and photographs and learn more about the Columbus
Day Storm at the companion Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/
columbusdaystorm
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dodge, John (Columnist), author.
Title: A deadly wind : the 1962 Columbus Day storm / John Dodge.
Other titles: 1962 Columbus Day storm | Columbus Day storm
Description: Corvallis : Oregon State University Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. 
Identifiers: LCCN 2018016272 (print) | LCCN 2018018679 (ebook) | ISBN
9780870719295 (e-book) | ISBN 9780870719288 (original trade pbk. : alk.
paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Storms—Northwest, Pacific—History—20th century. |
Storms—British Columbia—Pacific Coast—History—20th century. |
Storms—California—Pacific Coast—History—20th century. | Storms—
Pacific Coast (U.S.)—History—20th century. | Northwest, Pacific—History.
Classification: LCC QC943.5.U6 (ebook) | LCC QC943.5.U6 D63 2018 (print) |
DDC 551.550979—dc230
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016272
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
© 2018 John Dodge
All rights reserved.
First published in 2018 by Oregon State University Press
Second printing 2018
Printed in the United States of America
Oregon State University Press
121 The Valley Library
Corvallis OR 97331-4501
541-737-3166 • fax [phone]
www.osupress.oregonstate.edu
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
1 OUT ON A LIMB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 TRACKING TYPHOON FREDA . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3 COUNTDOWN TO CALAMITY . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4 DEATH COMES TO EUGENE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5 COASTAL CHAOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6 GROUND ZERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7 A WIND LIKE NO OTHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
8 FALLEN FORESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
9 THE WIND AND WINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
10 BRIDGETOWN UNDER SIEGE . . . . . . . . . . . 117
11 LIFE TURNS ON A DIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
12 LIONS IN THE WIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
13 IT HAPPENED AT THE FAIR (BUON GUSTO) . . . . . . 149
14 TERROR IN STANLEY PARK . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
15 A STORMY AFTERMATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
EPILOGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Appendix: Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale . . . . . . 191
Source Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

To my parents, John R. Dodge and Corrine Baker Dodge
A Deadly Wind
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13
5 am Vancouver
BBRRIITTIISSHH CCOOLLUUMMBBIIAA
Columbus Day Storm dissipates off the 9999999999999999999999999999999900000000000000000000000000000000
northeast coast of Vancouver Island. Bellingham
9999999999999999999988888888888888888888
9900
9900
Oak Harbor 8811
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 Everett
Midnight 8833 WWAASSHHIINNGGTTOONN
Six cars smashed and one Seattle Renton
110000
passenger dies as more than forty Tacoma
vehicles are trapped by Hoquiam8811 8888
Olympia
wind-toppled trees in Vancouver,
British Columbia’s Stanley Park. NNaasseellllee116600 8888
AAiirr FFoorrccee SSttaattiioonn 9966
LLoonnggvviieeww KKeellssoo MMtt.. SStt.. HHeelleennss
M
9922
R TTiillllaammooookk 9900 VVaannccoouuvveerr
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 O PPoorrttllaanndd
9 pm T MMtt.. HHeebboo HHiillllssbboorroo
World’s Fair in Seattle SAAiirr FFoorrccee SSttaattiioonn113311++ 111166 DDuunnddeeee
evacuated as Space Needle E MMoonnmmoouutthh 9900 SSaalleemm
H 113388
sways in the wind. T NNeewwppoorrtt 112277
CCoorrvvaalllliiss
F
O 8866
EEuuggeennee OORREEGGOONN
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 H
5:15 pm T 8811
Portland weather forecaster A
P
warns his KGW radio listeners
CCaappee BBllaannccoo
a windstorm like no other is 111111111114444444444455555555555+++++++++++
about to strike Portland.
BBrrooookkiinnggss
8822
F4R:1I5D ApYm, OCTOBER 12 AAiirr FFoorrccee SSRRtteeaaqqttiioouunnaa 111122 MMtt.. SShhaassttaa amoros
US Weather Bureau Mat
observer in Corvallis, OR, CCAALLIIFFOORRNNIIAA ed
EEuurreekkaa Fr
abandons weather station by
as winds gust to 127 mph. RReedd BBlluuffff phic
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000== PPeeaakk WWiinndd SSppeeeeddss 8811 Gra
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 5500mmiilleess
10:40 am
US Weather Bureau in N
Portland, OR, predicts wind
gusts up to 69 mph in Portland W E
MMtt.. TTaammaallppaaiiss
area by late afternoon. S 8888888888888888888888888888888888888800000000000000000000000000000000000000 OOaakkllaanndd
SSaann FFrraanncciissccoo
Forest lost At least More than
STRONGEST 15 BILLION 53,000 63 300
windstorm in West Coast board-feet of trees. Enough wood homes damaged direct and serious
recorded history to frame one million homes. or destroyed indirect deaths injuries
Preface
An unexpected phone call and a blog post ten days later from a well-known
Pacific Northwest weather scientist became the two key ingredients that
motivated me to write this book on the deadly 1962 Columbus Day Storm.
The phone conversation and blog post would not have mattered so
much, if I hadn’t experienced firsthand the strongest windstorm to strike
the West Coast in recorded history. For me and hundreds of thousands
of others, it was one of those seminal moments in life, on par with other
events of the early 1960s never to be forgotten: astronaut John Glenn orbit-
ing the Earth, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.
I answered the call at my desk in the Olympian newsroom on Octo-
ber 5, 2012, a week before the fifty-year anniversary of the Columbus
Day Storm. I had written in-depth feature stories about the storm on its
twenty-fifth and fortieth anniversaries. Now a columnist for Washington
State’s capital city newspaper, I was looking for a fresh approach to my
storm coverage. Bill Bruder, the caller on the other end, obliged.
Bruder’s relationship to the storm was a unique one. In October 1962
he was serving as a US Navy weather observer at Naval Air Station Agana
on the island of Guam. Against a backdrop of Cold War military tension
that brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust, Bruder and his
crewmates took to the skies in Lockheed Constellation airplanes loaded
with radar to look for Russian submarines and to track the fierce tropi-
cal storms that morphed into typhoons. The mission that kept him in the
air the longest, and bedeviled him the most, was the tracking of Typhoon
Freda in early October 1962.
Bruder, a rural resident of Mason County some thirty miles north
of Olympia, talked to me in a matter-of-fact voice tempered by time and
tinged with weariness. It was a condition caused by no one paying special
ix