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BOUNTIFUL — Last year, December was ushered in with a massive wind storm. Nearly a year after one of the most destructive wind storms in Utah's history, some residents are still taking care of its victims.
On Dec. 1, 2011, 70,000 fell to winds of more than 100 miles per hour; one gust reached 146 miles per hour. The storm's damage cost more than $100 million in damages.
Trees toppled like giant bowling pins. They took down power lines, crashed onto homes and cars, cluttered the fairways of golf courses. Today, many of those trees were turned into mulch at the Bountiful Sanitary Landfill.
"We watched trees fall over just from inside the shop and eventually the count got to where we've lost about 500 mature trees," said Head Pro at Davis Park Golf Course Brad Stone.
Stone said that the golf course is still in the process of taking down the damages trees.
Related:
Neighborhoods reshaped by replacement of trees lost in windstorm
The walks Beverly Ward takes through her neighborhood generally follow the same route, but the scenery changes from day to day.At Bountiful Cemetery they lost only eight big trees, but the losses fit a widespread pattern.
"Colorado spruce and the blue spruce were the ones that came down the most," said Aric Jensen of Bountiful City Planning and Economic Development.
The tallest, densest evergreens; those are the ones that tended to snap in the wind. They were especially vulnerable because they were transplanted generations ago from their native environments. Urban gardeners water them regularly so a big tree's roots just didn't reach deep enough.
"And it doesn't have the wind resistance that it would have growing out in nature. You go look up in the canyons and we didn't blow a lot of trees over in the canyons," said J&J Nursery and Garden Center's Jerry Stevenson.
For Stevenson, the storm was good for business. He owns the state's largest tree nursery and a lot of people bought replacement trees. They're not buying the old standbys.
"But a lot of people are shifting to deciduous, or trees that have leaves," Stevenson said.
Bountiful launched a public education campaign to encourage proper tree choices, and they changed a city ordinance.
"Allowing us to go on private property in certain circumstances to do preventive maintenance on trees in particular," Jensen said. The price tag for that storm was almost certainly over 100 million dollars.
