Billings says storm was 'expensive 12 minutes'

PROVO — From the sixth floor of the Nu Skin tower in downtown Provo, Dan Tueller watched churning clouds carry Tuesday's memorable supercell thunderstorm toward his home, his wife and his two little children.

Not far from the Tueller home in west Provo, Million Air general manager Larry Mendenhall saw the same clouds roaring across Utah Lake toward the Provo Municipal Airport and scrambled to tow a pair of small planes into a hangar.

There was only time to move one of them.

Then, faster than anyone who saw it or was inside it could believe, the supercell unleashed crushing blasts of wind, intense rain and hail, crashing thunder and lances of lightning.

The scary combination whipped up some $13.2 million in damage, Provo Mayor Lewis Billings announced Wednesday evening.

"It was a very expensive 12 minutes," Billings said of the short, violent storm.

Billings issued a disaster declaration that allowed county equipment and resources to be used in the recovery effort. The declaration also could lead to state and federal relief funds.

Provoans swapped hair-raising stories Wednesday as dozens of families waited to return to their homes and 637 waited for power to be restored to theirs. Meanwhile, crews worked to clear trees, power lines and other debris from homes and streets and the East Bay Golf Course — 138 trees were down all over the course — and insurance adjusters began to descend on the city.

Tueller felt the Nu Skin tower twisting in the wind, saw lightning strikes pelt the area and said the storm sounded like a train rolling through. He called his wife, Stacy, to warn her, but he was too late. Power lines already were draped over his home near the intersection of Geneva Road and Center Street, and Stacy was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.

"The rain, wind and thunder was so loud I didn't even hear the power poles snap," Stacy Tueller said.

When a teenage girl helping her with the children told her the lines were touching the home, she yelled to all of them to get in the basement.

A few houses down, Provo firefighters burst into action from Fire Station No. 4, blocking off the road because of the downed power lines.

"You know in the movies how they knock on your door and barge right in? That's how they really do it," Stacy Tueller said. The firefighters made sure everyone was all right and then told them to stay put.

Dan Tueller had to wait an hour to get to his family. A neighbor had to wait six hours until he could retrieve his extremely bored two children and their three cousins, one of whom is 20, from their home.