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Farmington • Gov. Gary Herbert on Sunday visited five sites in Weber and Davis counties, where residents were recovering from damage left behind by an overnight windstorm.
One of his stops was a green-waste collection site in Farmington, where hundreds of volunteers were busy bringing in debris from toppled trees and busted branches.
"It's who Utah is and what we do," Herbert said of the volunteers. "When there's adversity, they step up and say, 'What can we do?' They don't wait on the government. They help each other."
He also acknowledged the help of faith-based groups and law enforcement in the cleanup. The Utah governor said he appreciated the "early warning" for residents to "batten down the hatches."
Herbert visited the home of Farmington resident Kristina Porter, who had a part of her roof blown off in the middle of the night.
"It was probably 3 a.m. I was dead asleep, and the loud noise woke me up," recalled Porter, who lives in the house with her four children.
The portion of roof — which was roughly 6 feet wide and 3 feet long with most of the shingles still attached — tore away just above her room and hit the side of a home behind hers.
A large part of Porter's gutter had also flown off and ended up wrapped around her satellite dish.
No one was injured from this flying debris.
Porter and a next-door neighbor, Melanie Smith, said their street is "like a funnel" for strong winds. They imagine their homes are at the "epicenter."
Their properties were damaged by weather before, back in December 2011.
"At least it's not winter this time," Smith said, "and we don't have to huddle under blankets."
Porter said residents are still trying to recover from the 2011 storm — and this latest hit makes it harder.
Davis County Commissioner Bret Millburn, who visited Porter alongside Herbert, said the winds also shattered a window on the third floor of the Davis County Administration Building and "filled the county chambers with glass and debris."
Millburn also mentioned damage to vehicles, shingles, gutters and the county's fairgrounds. He said the courthouse, as of late Sunday afternoon, was still running on a backup generator.
Nearly 40,000 Utahns lost power in the storm, according to Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen. Most the outages, the result of downed power lines from gusts that topped 90 mph, took place in Weber and Davis counties.
As of 12:30 p.m. Sunday, the utility had sent out 115 workers to help repair damage, including troubleshooters and tree trimmers.
Strong winds also contributed to numerous traffic accidents Sunday, including one that shut down a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 15 for two hours.
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