{"id":5505,"date":"2020-08-19T08:43:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T12:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5505"},"modified":"2020-08-19T08:47:56","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T12:47:56","slug":"episode-96-caught-in-a-cyclonic-storm-lightning-strike-knocks-us-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5505","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 96 CAUGHT IN A CYCLONIC STORM…LIGHTNING STRIKE KNOCKS US OUT"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
EPISODE 96    PARADISE LODGE\u2026CAUGHT IN A SUDEN CYCLONIC STORM\u2026LIGHTNING, KNOCKED OUT<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
august 2020<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n


<\/div>\n
Serge Lavoie and I were completing a magnetometer survey on an anomaly a few<\/div>\n
miles south of our base camp at Paradise Lodge.   Seemed  to be a sunny day.  Stayed<\/div>\n
that way until we looked at the sky about mid-afternoon.   Black storm clouds moving<\/div>\n
our director.  Moving fast.  The forest seemed unusually quiet for a spell and then <\/div>\n
all hell broke loose.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Great swirling winds tore into the forest.  Winds  strong  enough to uproot whole clumps<\/div>\n
of trees.  Particularly clumps of cedar that whipped over shoving their tangle of  roots and dirt<\/div>\n
skyward.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Usually we toughed out storms by just hunkering down.  This was different.  The wind was<\/div>\n
cyclonic\u2026moving in  circles.  Rain, thunder, lightning.  Noise as  loud as  a ACR freight<\/div>\n
train.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
One of us was carrying the magnetometer while the other carried  related gear.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We were trying to reach  the ACR  roadbed, perhaps  a  mile or two  east of<\/div>\n
our survey area.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We never made it until later.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I remember a crack.  Like an  axe splitting a birch block.  Sudden.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
And that is all I remember until I woke up.  Same with Serge.  When we awakened<\/div>\n
our gear was strewn around.  The Magnetometer with its tripod was a good ten or<\/div>\n
fifteen feet from where we lay.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We were fine.  But we had  no idea  how long we were knocked out.  Was it five minutes<\/div>\n
or an hour.  What had happened?  We guessed it was a lightning strike nearby\u2026close but not close<\/div>\n
enough to kill.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
The storm was  still happening but the ferocity had eased.  I seem to remember several clumps<\/div>\n
of cedar ripped from the ground.  Overturned  on their sides.  Were the trees like<\/div>\n
that before the storm.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat happened, Serge?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo idea\u2026knocked  down\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get out of here\u2026maybe a freight train coming.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Sure enough we were able to flag down an ACR diesel and  load<\/div>\n
ourselves   and the mag into the open doors of a  freight car.   The engineer<\/div>\n
must have known us for he stopped at Mile 71giving us a minute or two to<\/div>\n
jump down with our gear.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Bottom  line?  We had  no idea what had happened to us in that cedar swamp.<\/div>\n
But something knocked us down and out.  Later in the fall when Serge visited<\/div>\n
us at home in Toronto we remembered  that storm.   What knocked us down?<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
PERHAPS someone reading this  has  an answer.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
1) caught in big cyclonic type sudden storm (circular winds with high velocity)<\/div>\n
2) suddenly we were knocked out for a few minutes  or longer<\/div>\n
3) the magnetometer was ten feet away from us when we both woke up<\/div>\n
4) seem to remember clumps of cedars down with roots in air<\/div>\n
5) storm may have ended as fast as it came upon us<\/div>\n
6) only Serge and I had the experience \u2026 we were several miles from camp<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
august 2020<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 96    PARADISE LODGE\u2026CAUGHT IN A SUDEN CYCLONIC STORM\u2026LIGHTNING, KNOCKED OUT alan skeoch august 2020 Serge Lavoie and I were completing a magnetometer survey on an anomaly a few miles south of our base camp at Paradise Lodge.   Seemed  to be a sunny day.  Stayed that way until we looked at the sky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}