Blowing Trampolines

A look at our damaged window and siding.

December began with a bang for us, literally.  The meteorologists in Northern Utah predicted high winds for the evening of November 30th and into the morning of December 1st.  High winds, okay, I can deal with that.  I've seen many high winds in my life.  Not a big deal, right.  No one knew how bad these winds would be.  During the night I woke up a few times to the sound of the wind blowing outside.  Because I didn't get a very good night sleep, I was extra tired in the morning and didn't get out of bed when I should have.  That extra 10 minutes of sleep just sounded too nice and so I decided to let the kids play around a little more before getting ready for school.

Looking out our broken window at the neighbors yard.  Their rain gutter got hit before the trampoline hit our house.  There trampoline sustained some damage also.

Just as I was getting out of bed I heard this extremely strong wind and then a loud crash.  Immediately follow the crash I heard 3 kids yelling, "What was that," and little feet running up the stairs and down the hall.  When we got to the kitchen I noticed one of the windows in our bay window had been broken out.  Upon further inspection, we discovered the neighbors trampoline from a few houses back had been picked up by the wind and blown into the side of our house.  It wasn't too terrible, though it frightened the kids really bad, but it did do a little damage to the inside and outside of the house.

Another look at our damaged house.

The best thing about this story goes back to me sleeping in that extra 10 minutes.  See normally at the time the trampoline crashed through our window, the kids are all sitting down at the kitchen table having breakfast.  Now I don't think anyone would have been seriously injured, but I'm sure there would have been some cuts from all the flying glass.  I know it would have terrified all of them and probably me and for that alone, I'm grateful I slept in that morning. I'm choosing to believe that desire to stay in bed an extra 10 minutes or so was a divine inspiration (okay I'm sure it was just me being lazy, but who knows.)

Our broken window.  The force of the impact also did some damage to the wall inside the house.  Nothing that can't be fixed though.

Kenny got the window boarded up and I spent hours cleaning up the glass on the floor.  It seemed everything I thought I had gotten all the glass, I'd turn around and find more.  We feel very blessed that a little broken window was all the damage we suffered.  Davis county was hit really hard that night and early morning.  They clocked wind speeds at 102 in Centerville and near 100 in many other Davis County cities.  School was canceled the following day and I decided to drive the kids around to see some of the damaged houses.  They were impressed with the huge trees that had been blown over into house, streets, and onto cars.  It helped them realize how fortunate we really were.  It's amazing what wind can do.

One of the worst houses we saw on our drive.  Scary.