Last Thursday, the narrow strip of civilization where I live, maybe about 20 miles long, was hit with a massive east wind. 102 mph frigid, icy winds poured over the mountains and let loose on my town.
I have been in few frightening storms before. I experienced some earthquakes when I was young living in California, but they were short lived moments that did little damage, and I was not the adult in charge.
Working at a rich girls' summer camp in Maine when I was 20, I lived in a cabin that was literally four feet from the lake. It was beautiful, and I loved watching the sun set from the tiny porch, and listening to the loons sing at night. Every now and then, though, a mean lightning storm would roll through that was truly terrifying, but again, no harm, no damage, no responsibility.
I woke on Thursday morning to a really frightening storm; there was no snow, rain, sleet or hail, just crazy mind boggling, ear splitting wind. And I was the grown up in charge, that was also terrifying. The power was already out when I woke up, and we live close enough to the schools for me to know that they wouldn't have power either, so I didn't bother getting my kids ready. Besides, there was too much to do.
I went outside to secure everything I could. I brought in all the Christmas decorations, the lawn furniture and the grill. While I was outside, I watched the crazy wind crack, then blow the neighbors's large tree over. It took less than 30 seconds to fell a 30 foot tree. That's when I went back inside.
The wind didn't let up for 10 hours. That was one of the most frightening things- it just didn't stop. Our garage door faces east, and was totally destroyed. Standing inside the garage during the middle of it, I could see daylight through the center seam of the garage doors as they were being forced inward. I dragged two heavy steel shelves up against the garage door to try to support it from caving in. I was really worried that if the door blew down, it would not only damage my car, but everything in the garage would take flight. I loaded the shelves with everything heavy I could find, but was still horrified when the wind pushed the steel shelves away from the garage door over and over again. I spent about an hour leaning against the shelves with all my strength to keep them in place. My new garage door is reinforced with steel bars, in case you were wondering.
The trampoline was a total loss. The 30 springs were scattered over 2 acres, but the majority of the parts landed in the horse pasture, and no two pieces were left together. Two days later the girls and I hauled it all back over a barbed wire fence, with the horse looking intently on. Shortly after that, I found one of the horses grazing in my back yard. I'm pretty sure he didn't know how to get over the fence until we showed him how.
In the middle of this chaos, my water heater choose to give up the ghost. Water was gushing out the bottom into the storage room. I mopped it up the best I could, but had to shut off the water to prevent an ark-scale flood. Now we had no heat, no lights, and no water. Did I mention that the gas fireplace wasn't working? It was cold.
After the east wind finally let up, Sierra and I pulled the door up enough to get my car out of the garage, and just in the nick of time, Rebekah and her husband (thanks guys!) showed up. Jason popped it back out with broom and got the door shut. Did I mention that Rob was in Phoenix this whole time?
By then the lawn was littered with other people's shingles, pieces of flashing, garbage, a skylight, and of course, trampoline springs. By 4:30 it was really getting dark and cold. We had gone to Chick-Fil-A to get something warm to eat and to get out of the house, but we couldn't sleep there.
It was amazing to see how everyone everywhere was talking to perfect strangers about the chaos they had seen. The guy who took my order at Chick-Fil-A woke up that morning to his bedroom window shattering. Looking outside, one giant tree had fallen on his neighbor's house, and another on his mom's car. His chickens had blown up in other trees, and he had to climb up and bring them down one by one.
Driving around, there was destruction everywhere. Fences gone. Signs gone. Billboards torn to shreds. Roofs blown down to plywood. Trees on houses, in the roads... trees down everywhere. And they were all giant trees. The little young trees were all fine. In one cul-de-sac, 30 giant trees went down, but not one landed on a person, or a house.
The interstate was closed because so many semis tipped over, and the roadway was covered with signage, trampolines and trees. School was cancelled because of the power outages, and the sheer amount of debris everywhere. We slept at the cousin's house, where they at least had a fire. The kids roasting mini marshmellows over candlelight and we ate Chinese. It was fun, until Emma woke up puking, over and over. We headed back home to check things out, and get the sick kid away from other kids. Much to my despair, there was still no power, no heat. It was really, really cold then. What do you do?
We went to the mall. It was the only place where you can hang out for hours without getting arrested. I was really grateful that there were places we could go that still had power. In a bigger disaster, there would have been no where to go, and that is scary. The high that day was 29 degrees; we would have frozen.
Thankfully, 36 hours after it went out, the power came back on, which is good because I was at my wit's end after discovering the extent of the water heater flood in the family room. A repairman came quickly to fix the fireplace, and another to replace the water heater, once the power was on. Then I could rip up and put fans on the soggy carpet, bathe, and feed my children. Well, after I threw away all the questionable food in the fridge and restocked it, that is.
I spent Saturday putting things back together, and rotating the fan in the basement. I was utterly exhausted, but I knew it could've been so much worse. The whole neighborhood was out with chain saws digging each other out and repairing siding and roofs.
On Sunday, I took the girls to church as usual. After the first meeting, they asked everyone to stay to hear an annoucement from the bishop. Another east wind was on its way, the National Weather Service reported. It would begin late Sunday night, and could be nearly as bad as before. They warned that all debris needed to be cleared before it all turned into flying projectiles again. Also, some nearby people had been without power for 72 hours. Church was cancelled in the whole region so everyone could get to work and get it all cleaned up, and prepare their homes to take in those people should they lose power again and we didn't.
Church is never cancelled. The general concensus is that the last time church was cancelled was when Brigham asked the people to go rescue the Willlie & Martin pioneers stranded in Wyoming by the heavy snow. I called Rob and asked him to please, please, get on an early flight and come home. Which he did.
Watching the whole community get out and pull together that Sunday made it difficult to see this terrifying storm as a tragedy. No one was hurt, and so many people were overcome to see the service that other people offered. One friend of mine had 20 men work in her yard with chainsaws for seven hours to clear her house of fallen trees. People donated fork lifts, trailers, chain saws, and lots and lots of time.
The entire community was cleaned up within 48 hours of the storm, by the community itself, and thankfully, the second storm never came. The dump was opened for free, and groups of people who had no damage went there just to help people unload their trailers- just to be helpful. It wasn't until several days later that I saw the National Guard at work; on my way to the school, a convoy of seven huge tank-like truck barreled down the road headed to the dump. By then, most of the work, save repairing fences, was already done.
I'm really proud of my town, and my neighbors. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in a similar situation. And as we've been putting everything back together again, as I've called the plumber, the carpet guy, the fireplace guy, the garage door guy, etc., I can't help but think that this was God' economic stimulus package. All the prayers for jobs have been answered. Everyone is working. It was difficult to get on the garage guy's schedule, and don't even try to find a roofer. We tried, to repair the rental house, and every one of them had a full mailbox.
It was a scary storm, it was a week of chaos, but it brought our community closer together, made us grateful for the luxuries of modern living, and put people back to work who have been without. This was the embodiment of , "Come what may, and love it."
