The Windstorm of 2011

Fall asleep to howling winds, wake up about 3:00 am to a loud pop, 

flash of light and a crack. 

Yes... the Windstorm of 2011.  

Dave headed out back to see our power ripped out of the roof, one of our 60-70ft. spruces down and roof tiles flying all over the neighborhood. 

For the next several hours we watched two more fall -- barely missing our window (Kenzi could see branches coming in the screen of the bathroom), heard the Longs gigantic root rip from the group, watch the Amone's roof tiles fly off and the Lymans basketball backboard shatter in the cul-de-sac.

We watched Bishop Pitt drive around the neighborhood surveying the damage and realized this was huge.  Dave took Lauren to school but called and said things were a mess and he was bringing her home. 

The rest is history.  As we drove around and saw driveways blocks, carpets smashed and power lines down I couldn't believe that someone hadn't gotten hurt.   I also couldn't imagine what Joplin, MO had looked liked after the tornados.

For the next 3 days although we had no power, no mess and things were definitely out of the routine.

*  Lolo and Dave braved one night at the house without power... they joined us after that at Grandpas.

*  The kids thought it was great to hang out at Grandpas with the Russells.

*  Amazing, amazing, amazing people helping.  On three different occasions I looked out and found people in our backyard cleaning and helping.  I cried every time I saw groups of people helping.

*  Power was finally restored after 3 days when Dave begged the Provo power guys to come take a quick look at our house after fixing a power line in the cul-de-sac.  (And we rewarded them with gingerbread cookies.)

*  Very strange to see hardly any men in Sacrament meeting, and several people in jeans who had just taken a break from cleaning up.  

*  Just glad to be a part of helping as all Sunday afternoon people cleaned, singles wards scattered and just showed up in people's yard.

*  Bishop Pitt, Cameron Wright and many, many others were amazing.

*  Lauren who said of canceling church and working hard all Sunday "this is the greatest weekend of my life.  I love this."

*  I hate the backyard now -- we lost our 2 gorgeous huge blue spruces and one small one -- and I now can see right into the neighbors backyard.  (Not that I don't love you Longs -- just loved your trees you lost.)  One person in our ward lost 65 trees and I heard in our Stake we have lost about 700'ish trees.  Amazing!

*  Met Life Insurance -- great!  We got a new roof within 7 days and they have been so great to work with.

*  For the last 2 months I've watched roofs getting re shingled, fences being replaced -- all lots of messes that I'm sure will be there until spring.  But I've also watched people serve, sacrifice, work together and Heavenly Father protecting a lot of people and structures.  There is no way that a 60 foot tree should have not hit our house when it fell in a 40 ft space.  Yes there were some people who had damage, but nothing compared to what could have happened.