Wind, Lots and Lots of Wind

I don't have any pictures to add at the moment since they're all on Ryan's phone.  However, I can still describe our rather unusual weekend.  Wednesday night there was a weather warning of high winds coming through, supposedly the worst Utah has seen in 10 years.  I've seen wind storms here before, but this was something else.  The wind started howling late Wednesday night.  We lost power sometime before 3 in the morning.  When morning came there were already shingles littering the ground and trees threatening to topple.  Ryan could barely stay on his feet when he went outside. 

The wind got worse as the day went on.  Pretty soon we were loosing vents and other important metal things off the roofs, as well as drain pipes, and siding from the eaves.  The fences at the end of the road were half way blown down, there were tree down everywhere.  The house was shaking from the force of the wind.  I was worried something was going to go flying into one of the windows.  Our windows didn't break, but there were plenty that did.  I could hear metal flapping around on the roof for a while.  It was hard to hear inside because of the noise outside.  It was a category 2 hurricane minus the water (thankfully). 

The wind died down in the afternoon and we went out.  Half the roof was on the ground outside and the stucco was smeared with tar from all the flying shingles.  There were broken power poles and street lights.  Streets signs were down and bent in half, there were trees on top of houses and in the roads.  The Smith's sign from the grocery store that was cemented in had fallen, taking the cement out of the ground with it.  Anything left outside had been donated to neighbors anywhere from feet to miles away.  We now have a door mat that landed itself outside our front door.  We also had an "absolutely no street parking" sign from a neighborhood behind us and across the street wrapped around our air conditioner. 

Needless to say, it was a mess.  Clean up was happening, but slowly.  Then, Sunday, there was another storm warning given for another wind storm (though tame this time, only 65 mph gusts instead of the 102 mph gusts we got the last time).  With all the debris lying around, it was a recipe for much more damage.  Our church was cancelled and we were asked to go clean up.  We spent 3-4 hours picking up shingles, metal, fencing and trees in our neighborhood and loading them on trucks to take to the dump.  The line at the dump was an hour long. It was neat to see the whole neighborhood come together to get things cleaned up.  Many hands do make light work.  It was amazing how much we accomplished working together.

The wind storm came.  There are more shingles on the ground, though not nearly so many, and probably some damage elsewhere.  I'm glad the debris is all picked up though, much less damage that way.  I never want to be in a hurricane.  This was scary enough.  I am grateful for a roof over my head and that all of us are safe and well.