WINDS THAT BIND: DECEMBER 2011

It has been a while since I have posted on this site, but yesterday was a day to remember and I felt I needed to record the events of the day. Last Thursday, Davis County suffered severe damage due to high winds. Winds were recorded as high as 102 miles per hour in the Centerville area and in the 90's in Kaysville. Power was out in many areas and i was not even able to continue to work due to the power outage. Therefore, I was able to go home and spend the day in the neighborhood cleaning up debris from many yards. There were fences and trees down all over the neighborhood with roof damage and siding damage on many homes. Our home sustained roof damage and flashing damage. We fortunately lost no trees. It was amazing how many people came out to help in the clean up. We had tons of people just going house to house chopping up downed trees and making piles of garbage. After hours of work in the neighborhood, we had piles of debris stacked in front of most of the homes in the neighborhood. The hopes was that Kaysville City would come by and clean up the mess. More clean up occured on Friday and Saturday and the piles just got big. Fast forward now to Sunday.

We all know that Sunday is a day of rest, a day to worship our Savior and rest from our labors. As we sat in Bishopric meeting that morning at 8:30, we received an email from our Stake President, Kyle McKay. He informed us that there was to be another severe storm that night that would bring high winds and snow. He felt that we need to mobilize the wards to start cleaning up the debris and haul it to the dumps before the debris was blown all over the neighborhood again and became flying projectiles. He claimed that the Ox was in the Mire. Therefore, our ward which did not start church until 1:00 would start cleaning up then the other wards would do the same after their meetings. What we didn't realize is that this would be full day of work. Our ward meetings were eventually canceled altogether. Well, by 9:30 am we had about 20 people ready to start hauling loads to the dump. We started at one end of the street and began working our way through the neighborhood. Within 30 minutes we had hundreds of people loading trailer after trailer and hauling it away. We would pull up to someones home and load fences that had been blown down, tree branches, siding, shingles and anything else that had been destroyed. We had neighbors out helping that are not members of the church and some that have never even been out socially in the neighborhood. It was absolutely amazing. I don't think there could have been a better Sabbath activity. The unity and love that was felt among all those that were involved was incredible. We finished cleaning up our ward boundries then moved into the next ward and so on until our little community was cleaned up and ready for the storm, which by the way never materialized. Which is okay. The lessons learned and the bonds that were formed were beyond measure. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. It was a great day and for that I thank my Heavenly Father.