Massive January 2010 Storm in Arizona – Tornado Warning and a Downed Cactus

Last night was rather exciting here at the Mindless Mommy household. California has been pounded with storms this week and as they’ve left Cali they’ve migrated into Arizona. Yesterday was a whopper of a storm and we actually had a Tornado Watch issued in the late afternoon. Now I lived in Arkansas for two years and I’ve been through my fair share of tornado watches and warnings but they are rare here in Arizona.

Sure enough, later in the night three different tornado warned storms marched through Phoenix. Two in the northern part of the metro area and then one in the southeastern part – this southern one was headed our way. Now I must state that there is not a report of a confirmed tornado out of the storm but it was doppler indicated. Dave and I took the kids and hung out in the laundry room from 9:10 to 9:30 pm.

We had the laundry room door open so we could hear the TV and all of the sudden we heard wind like we’ve never heard before (and we’ve been in microbursts out here) and Dave actually closed the laundry room door. Alex got a little frightened and hid under the sleeping bag. After about 45 seconds, the scary sound was gone and then about 5 minutes later the wind died down. We all came out of the laundry room and proceeded to go about the task of trying to fall back to sleep.

When I woke up this morning and looked out back, I noticed that a 20 (ish) foot tall saguaro cactus had toppled over and crashed through our fence. In previous storms, we’ve watched this cactus kind of sway a little during the massive wind gusts but last night was the cactus’ last stand – literally.

I’m pretty sure the HOA will cover the cactus removal and fence repair because the cactus is from a common area of the neighborhood and the HOA is in charge of the view fences and common walls. I’m waiting to hear back from the community manager though.

Now on to the pictures. I must say that I feel a little bad for all of the birds that made their home in the cactus. We loved watching birds fly in and out and today they were just kind of hanging around the area wondering what the heck happened to their house. I think some rabbits may have had their den in the area as well because I disturbed a bunch when I walked out there to take pics.