December wanted to be remembered this year, so it started off with an exclamation point. A hurricane style wind blew through and with it took fences, shingles, signs, trees and trampolines. It also took out the power for over 8 hours. I looked across the street to see my neighbor being hit with flying debris, falling down, wincing in pain.
The local gym lost their 400 lb. sign. The Smiths sign blew around and landing in another direction. People’s garages peeled off, windows broke and the stop signs bent in half. It has been quite a ride. The cleanup effort has begun. In neighborhoods with older trees there are piles and piles of tree parts on the curbs.
One thing that impresses me is how some people PREVENTED worse damage. One neighbor turned his trampoline upside down and anchored it with bags of water softener salt. Smart. Another neighbor put tires between his garage doors and back the cars in to prevent the garage door from blowing in.
CJ Johnson who is in junior high decided he’d go to school. He was hanging onto a fence and narrowly escaped blowing away when another neighbor gave him a lift home. He somehow made it to junior high until noon. Generators were keeping the power on but most kids didn’t come and everyone got sent home. The entire district canceled school on Friday. We think that’s smart (too bad Weber State didn’t cancel classes – one student got seriously injured when debris hit him!)
The wind didn’t die down or slow from about 2am until noon. It was making the house rattle and it was noisy and fierce. We watched the fence in our backyard gradually come lose and blow away.
One neighbor planned to pool together and pay for one person to come through and fix all of the fences. We definitely hit our homeowners deductible of $500. We got to test our equipment. The lantern didn’t have batteries. The hand crank radio was too much work to keep going (but it worked well while the batteries were charged). My cell phone had enough juice to make it, thanks to a product called Zaggsparq that holds 2 whole charges.
A few days before the storm I left the lights on my mom’s car (didn’t know they were turned on). Someone had one of those jumper cables that doesn’t need another car. Some of them actually charge cell phones and other electronics. I know what will be on my Christmas list this year!
It’s good that no one we know was seriously hurt. We love seeing neighbors out helping each other and talking. In my next post I’m going to give an update from the city. Thankfully we didn’t get snow or rain storms next, but this will certainly be a storm we won’t forget.
What damage did you see and how did your house do in the great wind storm of 2011? Are there any tips or lessons learned you can share with us?
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