Wind Storm of '11

This morning was perhaps the worst wind storm I've ever been a part of. We had heard the weather forecast yesterday saying that winds were likely, but we had no idea it would be this bad. We could hear the wind howling during the night, then the power went out. The kids had to get ready for school in the dark. When we left the house we could see the ongoing damage. There was a tree across the street to the East that had been uprooted. Then while I was getting in the car I heard a crack and looked across the street to the North and saw that there was a tree that had been broken in half. The thickest park of the trunk had been snapped like a twig.

On the news we heard that there were wind gusts up to 100 mph and the freeway and many schools had been closed. They didn't say that our kids' schools were closed, so I went ahead and took them. There were trees and other debris all over the place. There was a power line down on the way to Kenna's school that we had to go around. When we got to Alec's school, the power was out and they were sending everyone home. As we were driving away we saw a huge tree across the street that had fallen down.

It was hard for us to get back home. I tried to avoid the main intersection in Kaysville because the stop lights were out and the traffic was backed up. But, I couldn't go around because three different roads that I tried were closed because of downed power lines. I had to avoid about 10 different large trees that had fallen into the road.

When I got home I noticed that the neighbors both South and West of us had lost parts of their fences. I had Todd put our plastic lawn chairs in the garage last night, but I didn't think to put away the heavy metal patio furniture. It had blown across the lawn.

I made a video attempting to show how bad the wind was, but you can barely see the trees that fell and the audio didn't work. But, it's all I've got.

The news story about the storm is here.