SALT LAKE CITY — Where were you on August 11, 1999? That was the day an F2 tornado swept through downtown Salt Lake City.
"My son brought it up to me once. He's 14 now and he came to me and said, 'Hey, did you know there was a tornado in Salt Lake City back in 1999?' I said, 'Yeah I was there that day, I was working that day,'" said retired Salt Lake City Police Officer Nick Deland.
Deland remembers being surprised when dispatch announced a tornado had just touched down in Salt Lake City. He and other officers went to The Avenues where they started knocking on doors as they witnessed lots of roof damage and debris.
"I had to kick in a couple of doors to make sure, when no one was responding and there was major damage. I had to go in and make sure everything was OK," Deland recalled.
Makinzee and Michael Loveridge were in the middle of their wedding day at the Salt Lake Temple when the tornado hit.
"The skies were so green, like it was kind of eerie," Makinzee said.
"On the temple grounds, they have those metal benches, and it took two of our family members to pick one of those up and move it," Michael said. "We saw one of those just sliding across the ground because the wind was so strong."
The tornado lasted 10 minutes, killed one person, injured 80, and caused more than $170 million in damage.
VIDEO BELOW: A TV news piece from 1999 shows the path of the tornado
David Church, a science and operations officer with the National Weather Service, says when thunderstorms moved off the Oquirrh Mountains, they interacted with a boundary that was able to quickly spin up a tornado. Church says it would have been difficult for anyone to anticipate a tornado of that strength hitting Downtown Salt Lake.
"A lot of times we just don't have the ingredients favorable for tornadoes like they do in The Plains and the Southeast states," Church said.
Although tornadoes are uncommon in Utah, they occur more than you might think. Church says we average about 2 tornadoes a year, but most are weak land spouts.
"An F1 or an F2, we actually do see that on average every 5 years in the state of Utah," Church said.
Still — a quarter century later — the Salt Lake City tornado remains the most destructive in state history.
"We always said the worse the weather, the better the marriage," Makinzee said.
"It's just another historical event in our history that is talked about from time to time," Deland said.
VIDEO BELOW: FOX 13 News anchor Bob Evans talks about his memory of the tornado
