A betting man would never have bet on the likelihood of happened on Friday night on Bowen ever taking place.
It was early evening and Lloyd Harding got in his truck, heading down Harding Rd., then along Trunk Rd, heading toward the cove. It was a windy night, but nothing unusual for the west coast in winter. At his home, volunteer firefighter, Aaron Hanen, was answering a call about a tree that had blown down across the road in front of the fire-hall. He jumped into his truck, and raced out, catching up to his father-in-law who was approaching the fire-hall. “There was so much debris flying around, it was hard to see,” Harding says, describing the situation. Then, in full view of his son-in-law, a tree blew down across the road, landing across Harding’s truck. “My heart did stop for a second,” says Hanen, “but I could see the tree had landed on the back of the truck.”
A shaken Harding says that part of the tree branches were across the hood of the truck, and wires had come down with the tree. He says he just “got out of there,” as fast as he could. Hanen says he saw the truck pull forward and then out of sight, his view obliterated by the tree that was now in front of Hanen. “The odds of this happening were astronomical,” says Hanen.
The storm seems to have been quite isolated. Hanen says he left his home at Harding Rd. and once on Trunk Rd., the main road across the island, the wind raged for “20 minutes to half an hour.” Then it was over. By that time, trees had come down from Bluewater all along to way to mid island. Firefighters from around the island tried to help clear the roads but where trees were on wires, there was nothing they could do beyond putting out cones to keep people from the downed lines.
Harding, who is the second generation of Hardings on Bowen, has been part of the volunteer fire department for 50 years. His family had to keep him from going back out to help that night of the near miss. “I was too shaken up,” he says.
Harding looks at his 2006 pickup truck with low mileage, with its back end cab flattened and his front fender chewed up, and hood dented. A chunk of tree is still lodged between the hood and the windshield. “This was going to be my last truck. It didn’t have a scratch.” He says sadly. “I hope they can fix it.” He is worried that insurance won’t fix the truck, and then that it won’t cover the price of a comparable replacement. Harding says the Fire Chief, Ian Thompson has loaned him his truck until Harding finds out what will happen to his vehicle.
