A bad storm has hit the Tsubaki shrine near Seattle in the US, and an appeal has been launched to help clear the many trees that have been felled by the elements.  At one point the situation seemed quite serious, but the immediate danger has apparently passed now….  (For an account of Tsubaki America, see here; for an interview with Rev. Barrish, see here.)

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Tsubaki shrine building surrounded by trees, before the storm struck

Messages from Rev Barrish and his wife that reached here on the morning of Jan 20 were as follows:

Current situation is that it is snowing moderately heavily with a large ice storm expected to arrive later this afternoon / evening…  electricity was restored last nigh at 1:00 AM…Snohomish PUD has over 100 crews out in the field, tree crews , line crews etc. who are working around the clock with minimum sleep and maximum dedication…

..owing to the particular nature of the layers of snow and ice this series of storms has been extra dangerous as the weight continues to pile up on trees….on Kaikan side many many trees are down, mostly alders, but a medium sized cedar tree has grazed our apartment as well…literally dozens of trees are already down on Kaikan side…
Jinja side…a medium sized and much loved yamazakura/ mountain cherry has fallen against the shrine building…we think the roof is intact and are dealing with that tree as well as a number of other trees that have fallen….however a pair of very large alder trees located to the north side of the Shrine building have seriously increased their angle of lean…it seems quite likely they will not last the day…we have managed to find a tree service whose owner and crew are willing to do their best to save the shrine building today…   again the situation is extremely dangerous to this crew and to the shrine building as well….
Normally to remove such large and dangerous trees costs several thousand dollars…with the added stress on the trees of the huge amounts of snow and ice and added danger the fee has increased by a factor of three as well….ganbarimasu…….

Rev. K. Barrish
America Tsubaki Okami Yashiro Kannushi

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Shrine is in serious danger by snow storm !!!! Please help us!!!
Many big trees had fallen down already. And now 2 huge trees are almost to fall down on shrine building. We contacted professional tree service to save our shrine. It estimate about $6000.00. It is huge money for us. Could you help us please?On the shrine facebook and Yahoo members— there are more than 1200 people. If each of you can help us even just $5-10 , it will be big support for us. Please consider to help save our shrine.  Our paypal account is kannushi@tsubakishrine.org or if you would like to donate by credit card, please contact to Barrish sensei by phone or e-mail. But we are not sure how long we can have power here.  Thank you, thank you for your support and love to shrine in advance!!!!!!!
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Tsubaki contact details…

Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America
& Tsubaki Kannagara Jinja

17720 Crooked Mile Rd.
Granite Falls, Washington 98252
phone 360-691-6389
email at
Kannushi@TsubakiShrine.org

Entrance to Tsubaki America, with some of the trees that have suffered in the present storm