Benjamin Bloggings: Wicked Winds Wrath

My sister's tree. This picture was taken before all the damage was done though. Her yard is piled with branches and sticks from her trees and others.

Wednesday night I went to bed knowing that there was a high wind warning. This is not an unusual thing to have in our area. We get canyon winds that can be pretty intense. I have more than once laid awake through the night listening to my windows rattle and things blowing around outside. So, I just went to bed hoping to get some sleep. Sure enough I was awakened a little before 2 in the morning by the wind whistling through our chimney and shaking windows. I decided to go down in our basement to sleep on the couch because you can't usually hear the wind downstairs. Unfortunately this windstorm was of a different nature, and even the basement was plagued with the wailing moan of the wind coming down into the window wells. Just after 6 am we lost power, and the wind coming in through the doors and windows quickly made our home a frigid place. Every so often we would hear a loud pop or smack as flying objects assailed our house. Once some shingles came at our sliding glass door with such force that we were certain it was coming in. Thankfully it didn't. Others in our neighborhood weren't quite so lucky as their windows came crashing in. Every time I went upstairs I could here the shingles peeling off our roof. Early in the morning the wind was intense enough that not only were the windows rattling, but the entire house was shaking. Later we learned that our area was hit with winds around 100mph. That's a category 2 hurricane wind speeds. We feel lucky that damage at our house was not extensive. We lost about a 1/3 of the shingles on our roof, and had some siding damage, but that is about it. Almost every home in our neighborhood is missing siding or shingles or both. Most people's fences are missing sections or completely down. Not sure anyone's tramps are still in their own backyards, and there is garbage and trees down everywhere. We only have two sorry trees in our yard and they are both still standing. Our poor peach tree has gone down more than once, but has survived and it battled the storm yesterday without falling. I guess Tony got it staked well this last time. We went over to my sister's in the afternoon since she had power and we didn't. As we drove I saw tree after tree down. So many huge pine trees down. Just on one golf course they lost around 400 trees. Tony says on a positive note the course will be easier to play now. Some trees fell on houses, crashed through power lines, smashed cars, etc. We were so happy that our power was back on last night so we could again rest in comfort and warmth and blessed silence after the night before, unfortunately not everyone had power restored last night. The kids were glad that school was cancelled yesterday because of the winds and again today to make sure buses and schools were repaired and warm for kids to return to school on Monday. We have had kids attending school in Davis County since 1996, and this is the first weather related school closure we have had. We have had school through snow, wind and even power outages before, but Mother Nature won out this time. I'll be ok not to have another windstorm like this anytime soon!