Logging in Oregon

I have become a follower of "Ax Men" on the History Channel. It is a reality show following 4 logging outfits in the Northwest corner of Oregon. They are logging in the Coast Range Mountains which aren't terribly high, but are very steep. This is the land of the clear cut, made necessary by the method used and the steepness of the terrain. The TV narrator tries to talk it up as very dangerous and it seems that sometimes they ask the loggers to do things that aren't done much (if ever) any more, such as topping a tree. In the old days they did pick a big tall tree at the top of the mountain and top it to use as a spar tree. Today's loggers use movable spar trees called yarders, but they had a guy climb a tree and top it like they did in the past. I suspect that the TV crews do a lot to make the job dangerous. I do know that danger lurks in logging, my dad lost a leg logging in the coast range in 1946.

They got more than they bargained for when the December hurricane? hit the very area where they were logging. The show did a great job of showing the devastation in and around Vernonia, which suffered heavy flooding. I am somewhat familiar with the area and until this show didn't see much footage of the flooding since we live 400 miles to the east in the desert. This was the second 100 year flood in the past 12 years for that area, and many people were wiped out. We spend a lot of time praying for the victims of natural disasters around the world. I suppose that Global Warming has nothing to do with that. yeah, sure.