Unreal Windstorm!

Wednesday was a very windy night. High wind advisories! Between the thought that we'd hear Tyler walking around at any minute with it being his first night in his big bed, and the worry of what was flying around outside, neither Matt nor I slept well that night.

Should have suspected the damage such loud, hurricane-force winds would cause. But I still was shocked to be woken up with a, "Mom! The neighbor's tree fell over again!" Again?

Half awake, I stood and took in the surreal storm from our front window. In the over 85 MPH winds (over 100 MPH in Centerville), debris of all sorts flew down the road. For HOURS. Shingles from all over in flight. Entire trees on the ground. Chunks of neighbors' fences down. Through the back kitchen window I stood and watched half of our back fence teeter, twist, and eventually topple over into the garden dirt. CRAZY.

Amid the UNREAL destruction and messy aftermath, it was easy to quickly realized how blessed we were:

• Blessed with sound walls that allowed a sense of safety even amid the unsafe forces outside.
• Blessed that the neighbor's tree fell into their yard and not toward our driveway, again.
• Blessed by the example of my oldest following the urge to pray. Wanting to not only pray for our home and the safe return of Dad, as I'd prompted, she got her siblings to kneel beside her and also prayed "for a few other houses, too."
• Blessed to only have the little cleanup we did, when a short city drive showed large pines down on roofs and cars, roofs destroyed, powerlines down, fences down, a few immediate neighborhood homes destroyed by fire!
• Blessed by the neighbor running over with a vintage phone to replace our cordless that was useless. It was our only connection to the outside world all day (Need to add that (and a 72 hour kit) to our shelves).
• Blessed with a strengthened testimony of the safety at the temple. When our drive was extended to include a girl-requested loop around the temple and proved that all trees on its grounds were standing, Paige exclaimed, "Heavenly Father sure is trying His hardest to keep the temple safe. He is trying His very best!"
• Blessed by the same phone-holding neighbor who suggested the girls come sit in front of their fireplace for the afternoon (while Tyler napped under his blankets and I hunkered down and read under mine).
• Blessed by the love of dear family and friends who called to not only check in but offered a warm place in their own homes to us if we wanted.
• Blessed by a husband coming home with generator in hand to get the furnace working long enough to warm the house for the night. With the home at 59 degrees, we could not just keep bundling.
• Blessed to have our hall light come on in the middle of the night. Over 18 hours without power, but back on! An estimated 10% of Bountiful still remains displaced and cold (sister).
• Blessed that the pictured damage at our home holds nothing to many others around.

Sure, the clean up will take a while (the neighbor wants to replace our back fence with a new one come Spring...not so sure where we'll come up with the $ for that.) and the flashing traffic lights that remain are a bother, but things could be so much worse. Homes and families are still here.

I am sure that December 1st's storm in Davis County will be one that the news stations flashback to for many coming years, much like the uncommon tornado that came through Salt Lake in '99 (Click on the link above if you have no idea what I'm talking about. The clips give a good idea of the mess). I guess I sign off hopeful that looking back at the storm will have us grateful for how bad it wasn't...even with how bad it was!