On Wednesday night before we went to bed we got reports of strong winds coming with gusts up to 80 mph. We have experienced east canyon winds so I wasn't too worried. We might lose a little siding or a shingle or two. Pain in the behind more than anything. Well about 2 am I woke up and it really sounded bad. I looked out my window above my bed and sure enough things were flying through the air. I was able to sleep again until about 5:45am when it sounded like my house was under attack. We ran out to the family room to find that our fascia on the roof of our deck was coming off. It sounded awful. Then we noticed that the girls window sounded like it was going to break so we moved Elsie in our room. Ellie, JJ, and Emma were already awake from the banging on the deck. Ellie was terrified. She couldn't figure out why the noise was so bad. She kept asking me "Whhhhyyyyy?" We turned on the news and they were shocked at the force of winds that we were seeing. The police had asked the school district to close but still they didn't until about 11am. We decided it was too crazy outside to send our kids to school, or for Jeron to go to work. Semi's were tipping over all over I15. Our neighborhood looked like a war zone. I got some pictures but not enough. One that I missed getting was the one where the roof of a house came off, and one of a garage door blown in and then the force of the wind blew out the adjacent wall. Yes, it blew out an entire wall. It seriously looked like a tornado went through all of Davis County. Trees down everywhere, power lines down, basketball stands bent in half, play grounds picked up and thrown like a rag doll, windows shattered, shingles on entire roofs gone, siding off of every house, boats rolled away, trampolines gone, trees missing their tops, garbage cans in the next zip code, and garbage everywhere. The only good thing that came out of it was that that stupid stop sign that we have been trying to get the city to take down has finally came down. The Davis Golf Course and Oakridge lost every third tree. They don't even look the same. We were only without power for 12 hours. Many were without for 72+ hours. When it is 18 degrees outside that makes for a very cold house. We lost a lot of our insulation because of our attic being exposed, which made things get colder faster. In all the devastation I only heard of one injury to a poor Jr High kid that walked to school. He got hit in the head, knocking him unconscious. He ended up at the hospital as a John Doe in critical condition. His parents didn't realize anything was wrong until he didn't come home from school that day. Yikes. A kid on our street decided to wind surf. Jeron and I saw the whole thing. He was going a good 40-50 min a hour when he just couldn't stay on his skateboard any longer. He kind of ran off but his legs just couldn't keep up with how fast they were running and he feel face first on the asphalt. His shirt came up from the wind and his pants went down. He got road rash all over his face, chest, and well you can imagine with pants down. I saw more of him then I ever needed or wanted too. Turns out he only sprained his finger, but he had to pick gravel out of awful places. He also looked to me to have a slight concussion. (but I'm no doctor.) Poor STUPID kid.
Here is our damage. Yes that is the attic to our family room. Oh, our attic cover got sucked up and broke in half. We now have a lovely piece of card board over it.
Because of the power outage and having heard it would take 48 hours to come on we moved all of the kids into our room for a big sleepover. Grandma Jan and Grandpa Gene brought up a generator for us. We were able to run our refrigerator and the space heater. We had a small space heater good enough to heat one room so that was the plan. By the time we got home from dinner the power was back on...THANK HEAVENS! But the kids were so hyped up for a sleep over that we did it anyways. They loved it.
We learned that we are very unprepared for such a tragedy. Had it lasted any longer or been more devastating we need to have more supplies. My parents neighborhood got hit pretty hard as well. They lost a lot of their roof, have a broken window, and their hot tube cover blew off. (It might be in my yard) They were without power for only a little longer than us thank goodness. I don't know if my dad could have made it through the cold. He is cold in 75 degrees. One sad thing to see go was a tree when you turn in their neighborhood. It was a huge landmark of where you were and now it is gone forever. I am just glad we were all safe. We really fared well compared to some. For that I am very grateful. Thanks JJ for reminding us to say a family prayer when it all got crazy. In the end we were told that it was type 2 hurricane winds. The gusts reached up to 96 miles an hour where we live and 102 in Centerville. I can now say I have been in a natural disaster. Even the national guard was called in.
No comments:
Post a Comment