August 1st, Day of the Storm

I had decided not to blog about the weather today. Talking about the weather can be so tedious. But, when I saw that our little Provo storm made it into the Washington Post, making it quite famous, I had to comment about my experience, because I am a blogger, and something that I personally experienced made it to the Post!

But, first the Post:

(Washingtonpost.com) Storm Damages Utah Airport; Cuts Power Tuesday, August 1, 2006; 11:22 PM

PROVO, Utah -- A storm packing rain, hail and 80-mph gusts of wind Tuesday ruined roofs, destroyed trees and cut power to thousands of people as it raged across northern Utah.No deaths or serious injuries were reported.

At Provo Airport, several small planes were flipped over and the roof of a fire station collapsed on a fire truck.

About 4,000 homes and businesses were without power in Provo, and some outages could last as long as three days, Mayor Lewis Billings said. Rocky Mountain Power reported 22,000 homes or businesses without electricity in the Salt Lake City area, and 1,200 outages in Park City.

Hours after the midday storm had passed, there were still 6-inch piles of hail in shaded areas.

At a Sizzler restaurant, waitresses served food despite a wind-blown gap in the roof.

"We just told our customers that we would get their food to them as soon as possible," Akasha Francom told the Daily Herald. "We had to help our cooks with flashlights because it just left them completely in the dark."

Another server, Ashlee Warren, witnessed the sudden alteration to the restaurant.

"Something went flying past and I said, 'I think that was our roof,'" she said.
© 2006 The Associated Press

This article is a very bland description. If you want better more colorful details with pictures and charts go here or here.

My personal experience. Whoa. I have never seen rain fall in sheets like that before. Ever. And I am from the land of big rain clouds. There were sheets blowing in two directions. We couldn't see from our front office window to the end of the sidewalk. The rain gutters couldn't handle all the water, so they just stopped trying. The water just poured off of the roof and totally beat the living hell out of the poor plants that just happened to be planted in the flower beds below. And then the hail came. And it came sideways. I didn't know that hail came sideways. It piled up like snow, and stayed with us long after the sun came back to visit. Then it melted into the back hallway and made our carpet squishy.

At the office we didn't have power for about four hours, from about 11:20 to 3:15. Thank goodness for battery backups on computers, and cell phones, or we would have been completely bored, sitting in the dark, braiding each other's hair waiting for the power to come back on.

(I'm kidding, we were plenty busy helping clean up yards and calm down our tenants... especially the ones with powerlines down in their front yards- see above picture.)

What is the most amazing thing to me was as I drove home tonight to Pleasant Grove, where I live, not too far away from Provo, Pleasant Grove didn't have a single leaf or branch on the ground. The pavement was dry. Southwest Provo looks like it got a visit from a hormonal cave ogre, and Pleasant Grove just 14 miles up the road, has a nice cool breeze.

Sometimes my life is so schizophrenic.