Tornado Thursday ...and no, I am not in Texas!

The past Thursday we had two confirmed tornadoes in Utah---one in Ogden and one in southern Utah.  And I was totally out of the loop on the whole weather situation as I sat inside at my desk in Salt Lake.  We had light rain off and on during the day.  However apparently no one in the office keeps in touch with the outside world as there was no hint of the weather chaos happening in Davis and Weber counties to the north of the Salt Lake Valley.

I had looked at my phone during my short lunch break and noticed that I didn't have any type of messages as all which is unusual.  However I was too busy to think about it too much.  I worked until about 5:45 as I was meeting someone in Park City for dinner.  I grabbed my phone and headed out to my car and then tried to type the address where I was going into my phone and discovered my phone was not working...no internet.  I decided to head up the Canyon and get directions in Park City.  I did try to send an message to Gary but that didn't work either.  I was still clueless.......

As I was driving through the city, all of sudden my phone started beeping like crazy as emails, messages, and missed calls started coming in.  Shortly after that Gary called me and he was the one that first told me about the tornado and the crazy weather up in our area.  Tree limbs, green leaves, etc, were all over our neighborhood due to the high winds and rain.  There were some patches of minor flooding and fences broken everywhere.  It was much worse in other areas including Ogden where the tornado touched down. Over 35000 people were without power for several hours, some for a day or two.

I took these pictures today.  We just had one branch break and several sunflowers downed...plus leaves everywhere.  Our basketball goal was also tipped over but luckily it didn't break the backboard. (The rim was already bent from being tipped over a few years ago.  Maybe we will get it fixed now as Jena liked to shoot baskets in the fall.)

This is a picture taken in Clearfield at the beginning of the JV game that was posted on Facebook. (The game was called shortly after this shot was taken.)  Gary's mom happened to notice some horses in a field across the street from her house as they were running around in circles and then all bunched up together.  She saw the dark clouds and actually watched the approach of the storm from Antelope Island until it passed over her house.

The storm brought wind, rains, and some hail in our area and some snow in the higher mountains. The winds calmed down by that night but the rain continued until Saturday morning.

While all of this was going on, I was still heading up to Park City for dinner.  I had gotten a message for the person I was meeting that the weather was okay in Park City although they were expecting storms later that night.

Unfortuanately, later that night happened to be the moment we left the restaurant and started ending to our homes.  I had decided it would be safer to travel down Parley's Canyon back to the Salt Lake area and then north to Syracuse rather than taking the back freeways which would take me through East Canyon and down I-84 to Ogden and then Syracuse.  About 5 minutes into Parley's Canyon they had a traffic report starting with "Parley's Canyon has very slow driving as it is getting hit the hardest at the moment due to rain and standing water on the road."  Great, it was too late to turn around so I got to have about 20 minutes of some of the scariest driving I have done in years.  The roads were very wet, lots of slow traffic and standing water in spots.  The rain was so heavy that it was beyond the ability of the windshield wipers to keep it clear.  I was one happy person when I enter the Valley and started driving on the more familiar and well lit freeways.  It was striking as I finally drove down Gordon Ave. to our neighborhood to see the amount of trees and debris all over the yards and roads. It was scary to me that I didn't even know it was happening.

And this is just a baby storm compared to what happens in Texas!!!