Big storm March 9-10, 1977

Chris’ remarks about the south wall of the operations building flexing in a storm brought back memories.

Dinah Collette, George Sasaki and I experienced a big storm in 1977. We had spent the past two days (Mar. 9 and 10) collecting the lights’ weathers and messages because Bull Harbour had had a two-day power failure. We transmitted on 2200Khz, received on 2274 and then sent everything to Alert Bay on 2292, from what I can recall. It was kind of fun playing Coast Guard. Bull Harbour was back on the air by the evening of Mar. 10.

A big storm formed that afternoon. We had to turn off the aeronautical beacon because the lead-in to the ops building was loose and sparking. As the storm grew we could see the south wall flexing with the gusts. Rain was being driven in around and through the windows, and when I opened the cupboards under that long counter that ran below the windows I saw rain was coming in there too, getting everything wet (my Hendrix album covers are still warped). We moved my stereo off the counter and then emptied the cupboards, waiting for the south wall to maybe fail, but fortunately it did not. We put rags and containers under the windows to try and catch the leaks. The power to the tramway and duplex went out, so everybody spent the night in the ops building. I don’t remember why the power had gone out down below.

Peak mean wind speed that night was 92mph (we still only had the flashing light indicator in those days, so no gust data).

The next day George and I ran extension cords from the pump house at the dock to the freezer at the house to try and save the food. After lunch Vancouver Island Helicopters came in from Sandspit with an electrician, who fixed the power, and an electronics tech, who fixed the beacon lead-in. The operations and basement windows were replaced on Aug. 29, 1977.