Holy Wind, Batman!

Oh my goodness!  Tonight we had the craziest windstorm in Provo!! I haven't been in wind that strong since hurricane season when I lived in Orlando! And apparently weather.com isn't quite as trustworthy as one may think: it said that we had winds that were 17mph. Pah! Well, weather.com, then tell me why we had our back fence entirely RIPPED off, and our door twisted and thrown to the ground! It's pretty safe to say that the wind was MUCH stronger than a piddly 17mph!!

I was actually so bummed that I couldn't stay for the whole storm! I later found out from my roommate who was here the whole time that she didn't dare go upstairs because the entire house was rattling and whatnot. Ahh! I wish I could have been there. I think there is something wrong with me: I love storms! I actually quite enjoyed prepping the house for a hurricane and then watching the storm from the safety of my house (Orlando was lucky - we never got too terrible of ones because we were far enough inland). Once, it picked up our trampoline and flipped it upside-down!! And it ripped massive branches from our trees as if they were twigs!

The best part about this storm though, was that it started right as I was getting out of the theater from watching 2012. I had gone out to see it with someone from my ward and as we were driving back, we could literally feel the pull of the wind on his car! It was almost kind of freaky! So we were joking about it being "the end of the world!" since we'd just come from that movie. I got home and actually went in my front door for once (almost always use the back door - it's where the parking is), changed, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then headed out for the concert I was going to...

That was when I discovered my door:
Hmm, not quite what I was expecting on my way out! I opened the sliding door and was slammed with a huge gust of wind and just by instinct, I yanked my body back into the house and quickly closed the door. I stood and watched for a few moments, and then thought, "never a better time to get some awesome pictures and video!" So I grabbed my camera, prepped myself a bit more for the strength of the wind, and took some pictures. It was then that I realized that it wasn't just our door that was gone. Our next door neighbors lost their door as well! 

It was completely torn off! I took a few more pictures of other backyards and finally headed off to the concert. I initially thought I was going to be slightly late, but I forgot that you can give a couple hours of buffer time with all of the opening bands. So I got there with plenty of time to spare. And the concert itself was pretty good. The headlining bands were Safetysuit and Parachute. Safetysuit was the real reason I went to see it, and they rocked.

I thought for sure that the wind would have died down once I got home, but oh was I wrong! I drove up my street and it was crazy to see all of the wreckage done to my neighbors' fences as well as my own! From the time I left to the time I got back, half of us had lost doors and/or fences entirely! Here are some of the pictures:

When I got home, my next door neighbor Jessica was over and we got talking about all of the fun things we could do with the wreckage. The first idea was to take some of the larger pieces of debris, save it, and use it as wicked sleds for the next time it snows! We still might do that... But our second idea of fun with the wreckage was to take pictures underneath it. These were the results: