Winds gusting at nearly 100 miles per hour and a foot of rain pelted West Marin Monday and Tuesday, uprooting trees, downing power lines, closing schools, and cutting off electricity for days.

Rangers at Point Reyes National Seashore estimated wind speeds of 95 miles per hour, although Frank Dean, assistant superintendent at the National Seashore, said the estimates likely were low.

"If the wind was 103 at Angel Island, it was at least that at the lighthouse," he said. "I live on Limantour Road, and the wind was just cooking."

The wind felled dozens of trees across West Marin, crushing one house in Woodacre and upending a cabin there. The house, owned by the Benedett family on Ivy Lane, was crunched by a giant redwood that fell about 5:30 Tuesday morning.

"I knew what happened right when it happened," he said later Tuesday, as he sifted through broken glass and wood planks. "The whole house shook. Windows broke everywhere.

"I could hear everything turning, and the sound of nails bending," he added.

Benedett said the crash made him so disoriented that he thought he was in his bedroom and ran into a wall.

The family's Black Labrador, Yegger, ran around the ruined house wagging his tail as water dripped from the gaping roof onto the family's antique oak piano. A vase of silk flowers sat undisturbed on a living room table, although the floor was littered with debris and shards of glass.

"It doesn't even have 9,000 miles on it," sighed Silvera.

She added that a couple hours after the Rover was crushed, another tree fell and totaled a Bronco belonging to a friend who had come over to help Silvera clean up.

On Woodacre's Ivy Avenue, tree roots lifted up a small cabin and turned it on its side. Initially, the cabin's tenant, Eric Chase, said he went out to go to the bathroom and saw that his cottage had been raised three inches off the ground.

"I put on some clothes and filled my backpack with CDs, tapes, and I grabbed some of my pictures of Jerry [Garcia of the Grateful Dead] off the wall and took them to [the main house]," Chase said.

Had he been asleep when it happened, "I would have been just flung out of bed, all of my stuff - and I've got this big, heavy chair - would have fallen right on top of me," he said. "I'm definitely counting my blessings."

Lagunitas resident Dave Muhic was in a small cabin next to his family's house Monday night when an immense tree fell onto his roof.

"I was on the phone and I heard a big crackle," Muhic said as he stepped around downed power lines on Lagunitas Road. "I said, 'Oh no, I'm getting hit by a tree!' then click.

"Five seconds later, it was a big explosion. I don't know a good word to describe a tree falling."

In Inverness Park, a tree clipped a truck owned by resident Bruce Stevens, who lives on Laurel Street. The snake-bitten Stevens narrowly missed being crushed in the storm last March, when a Douglas Fir squashed a car he had just vacated.

At least a dozen trees fell along Laurel Street, with three landing on the property of Debra Ruff and John Finger.

"We just cut trees down and cleaned up from the fire, and now we have to do it all over again," Finger said. "And then there were the storms last year, too. This is getting old."

"We don't have it," said Sara Shelley of Angel's Cafe in Tomales. "No one here has it."

The juice was out in Nicasio, Inverness Park, and Point Reyes Station much of Tuesday, although some parts of Inverness Park were still blacked out as of Wednesday evening.

Downtown Bolinas was blacked out most of Tuesday, although the Big Mesa lost power for only a brief stretch Monday night. (Curiously, one town that retained electricity throughout was tiny Dogtown.)

"We've been telling people it's very likely that they won't have power until [Thursday] night, but we're hoping against hope it will happen before then," she said.

Gaynor-Murphy added that, contrary to what many people think, the much-publicized layoffs at PG&E have not delayed the restoration of power.

"We have not laid off any field workers in the last few years," she said. "In fact, we've added 500 workers since the spring. We've got five times the number of crews working in Marin than we would during normal circumstances."

"A lot of slowness comes from the kind of damage we're seeing," she said. "The work is very lengthy. It isn't for lack of people out there."

That was of little consolation, however, to Lagunitas' Muhic. He said he couldn't clean up the fallen tree on his property because it lay across the top of downed power lines. After several hours, he was still waiting for PG&E to arrive.

"I'd clean this up right away if I knew the wires were safe," Muhic said, noting he had called PG&E several times. "But you can't even stand on the street safely. It's ridiculous."

Lagunitas Road was still blocked by the tree 15 hours after it first fell, preventing residents from leaving by car.

"I can't even begin to count the number of trees down," the park's Arlene Tinsley said Wednesday afternoon. "They're still out counting them now."

The park headquarters lost power until about 1 p.m. Wednesday. At that time electricity was still out at the Point Reyes Lighthouse, Pierce Point, and Limantour Road.

Assistant Park Superintendent Frank Dean reported that the wind blew the roof off a residence at Pierce Point Ranch. Gusts also blew in the windows at the US Coast Guard main house.

However, not all at the park is bad news. Dean reported that measures to fix October's fire damage withstood the storm's fury.

"The rehab efforts have held up quite well," Dean said. "There's very little movement of soil."

Reports from Stinson Beach had waves cresting at 30 feet. Stinson Fire Chief Kendrick Rand said that when he stood on the Calles the swells blocked out the horizon.

Some West Marin residents with cable TV lost their signal Monday night, regained it briefly Tuesday, lost it again, and then regained it Wednesday. Some residents, however, remain without cable.

Nicasio School was shut Tuesday and a half-day Wednesday, while Lagunitas School remained open both days.

Marin Municipal Water District reported that its seven reservoirs were at 75.3 percent of capacity. Their average for this date is 62 percent of capacity.

The rainfall at Lake Lagunitas so far this year is 12.2 inches - still far behind last year's total of 22.1 inches. The yearly average for this time is 12.8 inches.