a blustery day

After living in Wyoming for three years, we got used to a lot of wind. One of the best things about living in Utah is that it's not windy all the time!

Not all the time--but Utah can get some very strong east winds, as we learned last night.

Last night in our little corner of Utah, there were sustained gusts of wind from 70-80 mph for over 10 hours. In fact, gusts were even measured at 102 mph right by our house! That's a category 2 hurricane.

Jason and I were up all night long. The wind used to wake us up occasionally in Wyoming, but that was nothing compared to this. It sounded like our roof was about to be ripped off! In the morning, we were surpised to look out the window and see basically the aftermath of a hurricane.

I was so sad when Jason told me we lost our little tree. I loved that little tree right in the middle of our yard! We will definitely plant a new one next summer.
This tree was pressed up against the outside of our fence, and when it went over, it took two sections of fence with it! Our lot is next to a city owned lot and we're not sure exactly where the property line is. We're hoping that the tree was on their side of the line so they have to take care of it!

I was happy to see that the treehouse I built with my own two hands survived the storm. The slide fell off, but wasn't damaged. We didn't lose any of the trees in our backyard, but as you can see, our yard is littered with branches and limbs.

Our poor next door neighbors lost almost their entire fence. I think these sections are all that made it through!

Overall, we got off very easy. Many of our neighbors lost roof shingles and siding, huge mature trees, entire fences. There are even a few houses that were facing into the wind with garage doors that just crumpled up! Our power has been out since about 5 am and the temperature in our house was down to 57 around noon when we came over to Jason's parent's house. They are apparently the only street in their town that still has power. We've heard rumors that power won't be restored for up to 48 hours!