Killer storm

The flood of muddy water coming down Mama Chu's hill.

The Dastrup's basement window.

Just down the street from us.

The storm rolling in.

Yesterday afternoon was a day that will be remembered for a long time! Kurt was with some of his work crew shooting some things for work up the canyon at Timpanogos Park. I was there helping him. It was about 3:30-4:00 pm and we were just finishing up. From where we were, we had a great view looking straight down the canyon. We all immediately noticed how ominous and other-wordly the clouds looked. And how fast-moving they were. Kurt commented that something big was going to happen because of those clouds. And how right he was! 

We headed straight home and the wind was already starting to howl by the time we arrived. (and it only takes us 2-3 minutes to get home from the canyon....)  Then the rain started. Then it poured, then it hailed, then it poured some more. Within a few minutes, we had a literal swimming pool along the back wall of our backyard. The water was pouring under the east-side fence with such force that it looked like a fire hose was on the other side. 

I ran downstairs to check window wells. Indy's room didn't have any standing water but water was coming in at the top of window and dripping down onto the sill. Finn's window well was filling up fast. Luckily, from all our past water problems, we had a pump that we immediately started.  Then I ran outside to the backyard staircase and the water was starting to pool down there. Once I cleared the drain it started to drain away----thank goodness. 

Within about 15-20 minutes we had our house under control but we looked across the street and there were cars and people headed to the Jones' house. We spent about 30-40 minutes emptying buckets and buckets of water from their window wells. Then, we heard that the Clark's basement was completely flooded so we headed over there for about 20 minutes. Once we saw they had plenty of help we headed home. Then we realized that our next door neighbor's basement was flooded as well. After a couple of hours moving furniture and vacuuming water and clearing tree branches and mud and debris we got their house under control as well.  Once we finally got home we realized that water had seeped into Finn's room behind the wall and under the baseboards. We had to pull back the carpet a couple of feet. But we feel so lucky that's all the damage we had!

All in all, in the 8th ward, there were about 37 homes that had water damage. Some obviously much worse than others. The 9th ward got the brunt of it I think. They cancelled all meetings but sacrament. The whole ward was helping the families that got the worst damage. It was a crazy weekend but nice to know that so many neighbors are willing to help in a time of need!