June 27th "The Perfect Storm"

Holy Cow, what a crazy storm! We got hit really hard last night. But not by a tornado, it was more like a hurricane. We were watching the weatherman on the news covering a thunderstorm that was about 30 miles west of us. The weather people always come on the TV when there are any thunderstorms because the weather is so unpredictable, you never know what it will turn into. So they were talking about how there was strong winds and a chance of hail. We had wanted to go out to eat, but decided to order some pizza so we wouldn't have to go out in the rain. So while we are watching the weatherman, I called the pizza place. The storm was still about 15 minutes away, and it was still kinda blue skies outside. Well, I was in the middle of ordering our pizza when the line went dead and the power went out. David looked outside and it wasn't raining, but he saw a huge wall of mean, dark clouds barrelling towards us. Then about 5 seconds later, it started POURING and the wind was blowing like crazy. David said very urgently that we needed to get downstairs NOW. So Isabel and I hurried downstairs (in the pitch black) while David grabbed the flashlight and closed the front door. I have never heard such crazy sounds while we were waiting downstairs. I kept thinking any minute, that the window was going to break. We knew it was bad because we have been in some pretty strong storms out here, and none of them even compared to this. It sounded like everything was being destroyed outside. After about 10 minutes of that, we decided it sounded much calmer and we went upstairs to see what was going on. It looked like we were in the middle of hurricane Katrina. The trees were getting blown like little plants and the rain was coming from every direction. Our friends porch swing was blown across the yard and smashed into their neighbors window. Then the hail came. It sounded like it was raining playground gravel, that was about the size of the hail. Luckily it didn't damage that many cars. After another 10 minutes or so, the rain calmed down enough that David went to see if everything was okay. He came back a few minutes later and told me to grab the camera and get in the car, that I "wouldn't believe all the damage". So we drove around our complex and I was speechless. Luckily no one was hurt and no other townhouses were damaged. It was a miracle that it wasn't worse. The news has said that it was around 90 mph winds that came through, but it wasn't a tornado because it was straight blowing wind. These pictures don't do it justice, but at least you get an idea of what happened.

This is our street that takes us out of the complex, notice the large tree that is now blocking most of the road.

This is by our swingsets. This is normally just a big grassy area, but is now covered with a lot of trees.

I don't know how this car didn't get hit, but it doesn't have a scratch on it. The tree is almost touching the back bumper.

This is the playground area by our building. I am glad the storm didn't come when lots of people were outside. It happened at 5pm, so most people are inside getting ready for dinner.

This is the tree that used to provide shade for the moms. It is at the playground and was so nice to sit under when it was hot outside. I guess we won't be having much shade for a while. If you can believe it, the house didn't get any damage from this tree, other than a dirty porch. Luckily they weren't home when it happened. It took about an hour to clear a path to get into the house. They came home as it was being cut up, so they were pretty surprised to see a tree on their front step.

This building had three trees in front of it, now there are none. They were all just flattened, but by some miracle, they didn't hit any houses or cars. Too bad they no longer have any shade from the blazing summer heat and humidity.

The whole complex looks like this: the ground covered with small branches and leaves. We even have a leaf hanging from our window frame on our car that got plastered on there from the crazy wind.

This tree just got snapped like a toothpick. This is at the other end of the complex.

This actually looks way worse than it is. The tree is leaning against the building, but amazingly, the building is not damaged. There is no structural damage and no windows were broken. The Lord was definitely watching out for us this night!

We are so grateful for our safety. We went without power for about 24 hours and that was a good lesson in emergency preparedness. I told David that I was going to start going to the cannery every month to work on our food storage and work on a good emergency kit to keep in our basement (food, stuff for Isabel, blankets, radio, batteries, etc). Funny enough, today I got a calling in our ward to be the Food Storage Specialist. So I guess the Lord heard me and is making me commit to my promise. This has been just one of the many adventures we have had out here. We love it here, but definitely want to move back west when Dental School is over. But for now, we will just keep having fun and enjoying our time while we have it.