A Thought on East Winds from Kathy

Yesterday the Wasatch Front (especially Davis County) experienced destructive east winds - the first in about 12 years.

In the early 60's we moved from Star Valley to Kaysville - a few blocks west of Davis High and Kaysville Jr. High. We lived in the new Happy Homes Subdivision - full of brick ramblers and split levels.

I remember it as early spring. It was either a weekend or school was cancelled. Dad was not home. Warnings came of an impending "east wind". We had never heard of an "east wind". We watched the other houses and did what they were doing - garbage cans under cover, tarps brought in, loose stuff picked up. Then windows started being boarded up. We had lumber, but nothing large enough for windows, and our house had several on the east side.

Our kind neighbors, Mr. Benedict and Mr. Neville just appeared with plywood and covered our patio doors and the basement windows. They worked quickly and were gone. We could tell they had been through this before.

Mother had us sit in the staircase which had 2 protecting walls while the worst of the "east wind" blew itself out. We could hear gravel from the roofs hitting the sides of the house. I have a memory of the plywood flexing in and out on the patio doors and the curtain moving inside the kitchen. Things rattled and banged as the wind howled and groaned around the corners of the house.

That east wind ripped paneling off the Jr. High and blew it down into our sub division, several gravel roofs were blown away; long tar paper strips twisted over chain link fences; garbage cans were everywhere, and trees took a battering.

Scarey as that experience was, it doesn't come close to what folks experienced yesterday. Now it's an opportunity to demonstrate with their children what being a kind neighbor means.