THE STORM!

The last couple of days of November, meteorologists warned about a big windstorm that would be coming through our area November 30/December 1. Sure enough, that night was horrible. I really didn’t sleep because of all of the wind. We have an addition on the back of our home that makes funny squeaky and pounding noises when the wind is bad. It seems that every time I finally got back to sleep, the noises would wake me up again.

The power went out twice during the night. The beeping of all of the electronics woke me up each time the power came back on. At about 6:30 am, the power went out again, and didn’t come back on. Ryan couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t sleep, and Copper couldn’t sleep, so we got up. Ryan looked out the window, and saw that one of the large pine trees about 3 houses down from us had blown over in the night. That really upset Ryan.

At 7:40 am, Ryan and I were in our kitchen. I was on the phone with Papa, talking about the night and the damage. All of a sudden, in slow motion it seemed, our huge pine tree came falling toward the house. It was very surreal. It looked like it would hit the house, although when we went outside later, it really was several feet away. As it hit the ground, it made a “whoosh” sound, and kind of bounced as the pine boughs cushioned the fall. I said to Papa, “Our tree just fell.” He had to repeat it back to me to make sure he had heard me correctly.

This tree was a piece of Jensen/Inman/Olson family history. As a young girl, Rara planted it as a seedling next to the home where she grew up. When she and Papa moved to this house, they transplanted the tree to our yard. I remember the day we moved it here. The past few years, Ryan and I have enjoyed it as this house has become our home. Seeing it (about 60 feet of it) lying across the yard was emotional for all of us.

It soon became apparent that when the tree fell, it pulled the power lines from the power pole in the middle of the block. Our power lines were lying on the ground under the tree! As we ventured outside after the winds died down, we found that the force of the tree falling had also pulled the mast (where the lines attach to the house) partially over, as well. It was obvious that we would not have power for a while.

Not knowing that the power was out in all of South Davis County (Bountiful, Woods Cross, West Bountiful, Centerville, and Farmington), I called Ryan’s school to see if school would be held. The secretary told me that they had not received official word that the school would close, but that if we felt that conditions were too severe to get Ryan to the school, we could keep him home. My conscientious student had a major project at school that day, and was concerned about missing it. Because of the downed tree and power line, I couldn’t let Copper outside, so Papa came and got Ryan and took him to school. Less than an hour after Ryan went to school, he called me. “Mom…there are only about seven kids here in my grade, so the teachers recommended that we call our parents to come and check us out.” Again, because of the conditions, Papa went and checked Ryan out of school. Alice & Claire were at Rara & Papa’s, so Ryan went there to hang out. I was still trying to communicate with people from work to let them know the situation.

We decided that it would be best to take Copper to his favorite home-away-from-home, the Utah Dog Park, for a couple of days until we could get things taken care of. So I picked Ryan up, and we took Copper there. Ryan and I then drove around to see if we could find someplace with WiFi so I could work for the day. That is when we realized how widespread the power outage was. Traffic lights were out all over Bountiful. Restaurants that never closed were closed, with signs on the doors stating that they were closed because of the storm and power outage. We took a few pictures as we drove around.


We finally found that all of North Salt Lake City had power! We grabbed lunch at a NSL restaurant (along with half of Bountiful), and took it to Rara & Papa’s. Then we drove back to a place in NSL that we had spotted with WiFi. I worked there until it closed at 6:00.

Rara, Papa, Ry & I decided to drive into SLC for dinner, and went to the downtown Denny’s. We laughed when we saw how many people from Bountiful were there, including the family of one of Ryan’s best friends. We sat near them, and compared horror stories about the day.

Everyone’s power was still out, so we went home, put on several layers of long underwear and flannel pajamas, started a fire in the fireplace, and slept in sleeping bags in the living room. (The pictures without the flash are blurry, but show the fire better.)