Spokane residents received an alert warning of a windstorm expected to hit within the hour on Sept. 25. Within 15 minutes of the alert, rain, dust, and winds hit Whitworth.
“I pay attention to the weather,” said Chris Eichorst, assistant vice president of facilities services and campus security, “But this one caught me by surprise.”
The storm outperformed forecasts, with winds reaching 61 mph. It passed almost as quickly as it had started, with the calm returning about 30 minutes later.
The storm, which was unexpectedly severe, caused two trees on campus to fall. One tree narrowly missed the bus shelter on Ivanhoe Road. The other fell right behind McEachran Hall.
Tara Tucker, the executive assistant of the provost, watched one tree fall from her office in McEachran Hall. “The tree looked like it was going to bend in half,” said Tucker. “I was worried it was going to come in on my window.”
The tree fell without damaging any structures. Tucker quickly notified Eichorst of the tree. “I was bracing myself for it to rattle the building,” said Tucker. “But it didn’t, strangely. It was such a big tree.”
Whitworth’s facilities teams responded immediately after the storm had passed. The team assessed the damage, but the rest of the cleanup would be taken care of in the days to follow. “The problem after those types of events is that we can see trees on the ground,” said Grounds Manager Brandon Pyle. “But we don’t yet have a sense of what’s stuck in the trees, tops of trees that are compromised, or branches that have fallen.”
The tree that had fallen near the bus stop had fallen across the road. Pyle, in the hours right after the storm, brought in a chainsaw and backhoe to remove the tree from the road. “It’s always our initial response to make sure nobody else gets hurt, or it impedes traffic,” said Eichorst. “And then the next day is clean up.”
This weather is not new to Spokane. For those who were in Spokane during the 2015 windstorm, this brought back memories. The windstorm of 2015 completely changed the look of Whitworth. The Loop, compared to its current state of manicured lawn and few trees, used to be more like a forest with a shaded, pine needle-covered floor.
The main differences between this windstorm and the windstorm of 2015 were duration and wind direction. The trees on campus are built to withstand a predominant southwestern wind. However, the recent windstorm, although short, had swirling gusts.
“A tree like the one that fell right behind Mceachern has had a building protecting it for its entire life,” said Pyle. “So, the odds of getting wind behind it and pushing it straight away from the building takes a pretty out-of-the-ordinary event.”
“The trees were just fighting and fighting,” said Eichorst. “They did fall against the strongest direction of the wind because it was from the southwest.”
