On 12 October 1962 typhoon Freda was heading towards land and dying out when it suddenly drifted into a dangerous zone where storms are typically formed. It picked up intensity and turned into a devastating cyclone that hit the Pacific Northwest coast affecting British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and northern California. The most destructive winds which reached up to 138 miles per hour were recorded in Oregon. In Northern California, Oregon and Washington combined more than 11,000,000,000 board feet of timber were destroyed. All of these downed trees were not only detrimental to the timber industry and economy, but also destroyed a countless number of habitats for a variety of animal species. Infrastructure was annihilated, leaving an undamaged building as an anomaly. Barns collapsed and killed all the livestock within. The forceful winds during this storm, still known as the Big Blow and the Terrible Tempest, ravished the landscape, altered the ecosystem transforming forests into clear cut regions, and took habitats for animal species with them.
Contributed by Corrina Jones
Course: Modern Global Environmental History
Instructor: Dr. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
University of Wisconsin–Madison, US
- Fraser, Walter J., Jr. Lowcountry Hurricanes: Three Centuries of Storms at Sea and Ashore. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
- Potter, Sean. "October 12, 1962: The Columbus Day Storm." Weatherwise 60, nr. 5 (2007): 18–9.
- Kheraj, Sean. "Restoring Nature: Ecology, Memory, and the Storm History of Vancouver's Stanley Park." Canadian Historical Review 88, no. 4 (2004): 577–612.
- Lynott, Robert E., and Owen P. Cramer. "Detailed Analysis of the 1962 Columbus Day Windstorm in Oregon and Washington." Monthly Weather Review 49, no. 2 (1966): 105–17.