As fierce winds swept through his Northwest Portland property on Saturday, Jeff Miller gathered his family and took shelter in the basement. He and his wife, Kimberly Beatty, 44, kept their toddler daughter distracted as they listened to the wind whistle and howl. Already a massive pine had toppled in the yard of their home not far from Cedar Mill Park. As the hours passed, they heard trees creaking, then falling, their massive trunks landing with a shudder. Miller, 43, an electrical engineer, emerged to scenes that reminded him of the aftermath of a natural disaster: Powerful gusts had cracked and snapped nearly a dozen giant pines like matchsticks. One tree took out an eave of his home on Northwest Rex Court and flattened a car in the driveway. Some of his neighbors fared much worse, their homes punctured and split open by fallen trees. The holiday weekend’s storm scattered pockets of property destruction across the region. Authorities say nine people in the Portland area have d...