I15 - Bountiful, Utah.
I15 - Centerville, Utah.
I15 convoy - Kaysville, Utah.
Upside down stop sign - Farmington, Utah.
Uprooted tree and lawn - Farmington, Utah.
Felled tree on driveway- Centerville, Utah.
I took these pictures on the way home from work, while I was stopped in traffic.
The drive to work was harrowing. It was dark and the sky was filled with a swirling mass of debris. Semis toppled onto their sides in the hurricane force winds, debris flew like wild birds and hit cars. The wind buffeted my car so forcefully I thought it might send me into the other lane, and since talking to friends and coworkers, in a few instances the wind did pick cars up and set them back down a few inches into the other lanes.
I was lucky. On the drive in, I missed the plastic sheeting that wrapped around the car in front of me. I saw cars with windows cracked or completely blown out. Once off the freeway, the roads were littered with tree branches, shattered store signs, garbage cans, and detritus. The power was off as far as I could see, and the only lights were those of sirens. Giant pine trees were cracked in half or uprooted in almost every yard I passed. I could see employees standing in their dark stores watching the wind have its way. In the parking lot at work, something blew off the roof and shattered. I was happy to be inside, even if the power was out.
On the drive home,the sun was out and the wind had died down a bit. Driving through the stretch of I15 Farmington, a piece of sheet rock flew in front of my car and slammed into a dump truck parked on the side of the road, then a rock slammed into my windshield, but strangely, did not shatter or even crack the glass.
I counted eight toppled semis still on the road, and a seemingly endless convey of parked semis, trucks, and larger vehicles lined the road or sheltered under the overpasses the entire stretch of Davis County.
The closest I've ever been to a hurricane was in Gulf Shores the year before Katrina. I have no idea, no experience or reality of what a hurricane is. The day before the Hurricane Rita hit, before we were ordered to evacuate, my younger sister and were on the beach, thrilled to in the wind and pounding surf. We ran from beach house to beach house, and held on to the deck railings, as the waves pummeled us. Our elder sister was out of her mind with worry. She knew the power of wind.
Sunday, Wasatch Front residents learned that another storm was on the way.
This past weekend, those affected by the winds, were without power. They cleared felled trees and debris from their yards, began reshingling their roofs. Yesterday, church was cancelled so that neighbors could help each other clean up the mess and prepare for the coming storm, that luckily, never arrived this morning.
Since the windstorm, I've found myself returning to a particular scene from Zora Neale Hurston's novel,
Their Eyes Were Watching God, when Janie and Tea Cake are helpless in the face of the coming storm and all there is to do is watch God at work.
They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
The Art Museum - Phaidon Press
