This last week was quite a tragic one for some parts of Colorado as we experienced a tornado in a fashion that we are not used to in our neck of the woods.
On Thursday, May 22 at about 11:30 or so, it first touched down in Gilcrest, a small, rural community south of Greeley. As we heard about it and tracked it on the computers it kept getting closer to our houses and office here in Loveland.
I talked with Cami several times and verified that they were okay and we watched it move northwest towards Windsor, Fort Collins and Laramie, Wy.
As I am sure most people heard, Windsor was by far the worst hit area. It went right through the middle of some neighborhoods and completely destroyed many homes and businesses. It was amazing to see houses without roofs or walls and trees completely uprooted. It is amazing the power of Mother Nature.
We watched the weather from our office building on the 3rd floor of our building in downtown Loveland and saw the clouds swirling in different directions. I have never seen anything like it. It was really kind of interesting, but when the hail started coming down and the tress started moving violently, we decided that we should move from the windows and head to the basement where we stayed for a bit until we decided it was safe. Luckily, Loveland was not hit and we just had some high winds and hail.
As we watched it pass over and to the north, we were amazed at what had happened. I went home as soon as I could and made sure everything was okay there, which it was. Koby and Spencer watched the news for about a 3 hour’s and were really concerned about what was going on and what we should do if it hit our area. It ended up getting about as close as a couple miles from where we live, but luckily no closer.
The next day, I got a call from the bishop and the first counselor in the stake presidency and was told to organize a group of 10-15 elders from our quorum to be “on call” to help in the cleanup efforts if they needed us. They said that we would be informed later in the weekend and given our assignment. I called my 1st counselor and we split the quorum into two groups and went down the list and got commitments from as many as were willing to help out and then just waited. They wanted to make sure that the insurance adjusters could make it in to assess the damage before we started cleaning it up. They said that would take some time.
On Saturday morning, I was told that our group was being called to help on Sunday. We were told to go to another wards sacrament meeting in our work clothes and then leave and head to Windsor as soon as we were done there. We made the calls and had about 20 people that committed to come along. It was a great turnout (probably because they were both allowed to skip church and got to go check out the damage 
. Everyone was totally willing to help out and do whatever needed to be done. Cami was asked to help prepare meals for the workers and help in that regards.
When we got to the location, we were given an assignment and went to work. Everything was just a mess and our group was given two chain saws and instructed to go dig people out. We went from house to house and asked how we could help. As you can see from the picture, it was a complete disaster. Most of the houses had serious damage and would just end up being bulldozed and re-built. Many of them were condemned and we weren’t even allowed on the property.
We stayed there until about 5:00 or so and they continued the next morning. Most of what was done was piling debris up on the sides of the road so that the dump trucks and tractors could come by later and pick it all up. There were a lot of trees that were destroyed, so we tried to cut them up in pieces. In general, it is just a big mess.
The church was expecting about 200 people (based on what I heard) but they ad about 500 show up on Sunday. Everyone helped a ton and the homeowners were very grateful and appreciative. Monday they had a more assignments, but I wasn’t there so I do not know how many showed up.
Over the next few weeks there will be a lot of change out there and it will be interesting to follow. I will update here based on what goes on.
If you want to see more pictures and video’s that I have, click here and enjoy.
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Thanks for posting this, Brandon. It’s nice to hear what you’ve observed and what happened. We still think it’s crazy that Windsor is so bad. It’s really terrible. I’m glad that there was a great turnout from your ward. Ashcroft is a great ward with great helpers.