The Neighbor with the Chainsaw

Cedar Valley News
June 17, 2026
The Neighbor with the Chainsaw
By Lars Olson

The morning after the storm, my lot was full before I unlocked the door. By the time I flipped the sign, a dozen men were waiting on the walk, and I knew what nearly every one of them had come for.

Chainsaw chains. Bar oil. Gas cans, the red plastic kind, two gallons and five. Tarps, blue, by the dozen. Work gloves. Extension cords, the heavy outdoor kind, fifty feet and a hundred. Ratchet straps. Batteries. A man needs no list for a morning like this. The storm writes the list, and the whole town comes in carrying the same one.

The weather service called it a derecho. I had to look up how to say it. The wind came across the country near ninety miles an hour last week and knocked the power out for more than half a million homes, ours among them. By the time the rain stopped, there were trees down on roofs and lines down across roads, and a quiet in the dark, you do not forget.

You saw the storm on the news. You saw the satellite picture, the red and purple blob sliding across the map. You saw the number of homes without power and the airport delays in the city. The news is good at the night of the storm.