Simple: unusually strong winds during the storm, up to 70 mph (112 kph), knocked down huge trees everywhere.

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Bougainvillea blooms year round, palm trees are everywhere dotting the skyline like enormous chrysanthemums and ficus trees reach the size of old growth oaks, reminding you that California is a very hospitable place to grow and bloom on many levels.

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Groves of sacred trees are everywhere in Greek myth, and the gods sometimes transformed women into trees.

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There were rocks everywhere, and scorpions and tarantulas and rattlesnakes, and vultures and no trees and not much water, and skinny dogs and donkeys, and ugly bad guys with guns and bullet vests who rode laughing into town to drink and shoot off their pistols and rifles, as if it were the Fourth of July, driving their horses all over town like dirt bikes on desert dunes.

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