Destruction & Divine Intervention

The night of December 1st, 2011 was a night like none other. We had winds up to 102 miles an hour starting that Thursday night and continuing to Friday about mid-day. Davis County was hit hardest, and in our Stake alone there were over 800 trees blown over. To the east, our neighbors, Paul & Kathryn Jackson's ash tree fell on our carport.  Their huge, old pine tree in the backyard fell and with it so did ours. We were so very fortunate that both of the pines missed our house, falling only inches from our back patio. On the west, Satuala's lost three big pine trees, one of them taking out a portion of our vinyl fence. Our favorite tree, the big ash in front of our house survived.

Bishop Stout came by Friday morning and offered to take us to breakfast when he saw that we were hemmed in by the fallen tree.  So very nice, but unnecessary. I told him we had Cheerios - all we needed.

What an insurmountable mess. We wondered how we could ever get rid of all of this.

But, you know Bountiful. Within minutes of the wind calming, everyone went to work, men, women, teens, and children. Our neighbors were wonderful, chain saws came alive, some people even bought new chain saws or rented them so they could be of more help. We worked hard all day Friday and Saturday, then we went to Church for a special meeting at 9:00 a.m. where the Bishop told us, with the approbation of the Stake President and the Area Seventy that Church would only be for the Sacrament, then we were all to go home, change our clothes, and continue working on the clean-up. The bishop organized us in brigades consisting of a truck and driver, people with a chain saw, and two or three others to carry limbs to the trucks or the curb. Then he told us which streets and yards to work on first. We were one of the first mentioned. This all reminded me of the actions of the wards during the 1983 floods, as well as Brigham Young's call at Conference for men to go rescue the handcart companies. After working hard for three days, I was exhausted, but still amazed at what was accomplished. The next Saturday another work detail was called. Everyone's work saved the city millions of dollars. 

The divine intervention came as we realized that hundreds, if not thousands of trees had fallen with no deaths, very few injuries, and a minimal amount of personal property damage. When you think of over 800 trees in our area having fallen, all those inexperienced people with chain saws working hard for days on end, with no injuries; all the heavy equipment and trucks in use with no breakdowns, not even flat tires, it was amazing. Truly amazing to see all that was done with the energy and even fun we had working with one another. It was a time not to be forgotten.  

Paul worked long and hard to cut up the fallen ash tree.

And so did his cute five-year-old son who is always helping.

Paul trying to get the tree off our carport.

The stumps of the trees were huge.

We finally had a skip loader and Wes White come to our rescue to lift the tree from our roof.

Wonderful Bob Coombs helped everyone he could, especially us.

Bev Ward and her family were helping everywhere even though a limb punctured their roof and was poking into their newly remodeled kitchen.

Quite a bit of debris in our yard waiting to be hauled away.

I felt like even though I could not do as much as many others, every branch I carried away was one someone else would not have to deal with.

Bishop Stout and his counselor, Tony Faber, were helping all they could, and with happy hearts.

Our Stake President, Jamie Dester, who certainly had enough other things to do, came and helped us in our ward too. The help was overwhelming, and so welcome.

Gary Christian came and helped us and so many others. It was really cold, so I loaned him my New York Yankees beanie. He is also a Yankee fan so that was fun.

Good ole Louie, still helping.

Chris Schmutz, our home teacher, came to our yard to help.

Paul did all he could.

Then we and Paul hired Wasatch Tree Experts to remove the stumps. It was well worth the $250.00 apiece for us to get them out because we never could have done it ourselves.

Paul and Wayne observing the situation.

They are loaded and taken away.

We had lots of heavy equipment and huge trucks appear to help us solve our insurmountable problems.

We were without power for over 43 hours and that brought its own problems, the worst of which was not being able to curl my hair and being so very cold. Our gas cooktop provided a way to heat Chicken Noodle Soup and our gas fireplace provided a little heat. But the electricity came on at Julie's, Mom's, and Cherie's much earlier than it did at our home, so Cherie invited us over to her place to warm up. She tucked me under an electric blanket on her bed and let us watch TV until we were warm. It was great. Some people just across Davis Boulevard from us were without power for almost two weeks. These things make you wonder and reconsider your disaster preparedness. 

All in all there was a marvelous community spirit, we felt much love and support and it was a privilege to serve others. As hard as it was, there were more blessings than trials in all of this. I am grateful.