Residents, businesses clean up after wild, windy day across Utah

SANDY, Utah — A warmer storm traveling through Utah will bring strong winds and slightly warmer temperatures through the weekend, prompting concerns over tree damage and potential flooding.

TODAY'S FORECAST: Wet, windy weekend

Residents of Sandy woke up Friday morning to fallen trees from the powerful overnight winds.

Celia Hatch says she and her family moved to Sandy in part due to the draw of so many great trees. But after Friday's winds, the trees they love are now a source of anxiety.

"They're really big and really old, so I've just been watching all our trees thinking, 'Stay up, stay up, stay up,'" she said.

"It's pretty intimidating knowing we have these giant trees that could just fall down at any second," said Dawson Hatch, one of Celia's sons.

Trevor Taylor, the owner of Utah Tree Company, says high wind days are the busiest for his tree removal business and some of the scariest for homeowners. To avoid property damage from fallen trees, Taylor encourages yearly maintenance by allowing a tree removal service to trim branches so air can pass through — or sometimes, the best solution is to have trees removed.

"If you have a large dead tree next to your house, get it removed as soon as you can," he said. "Because now it's not so much an 'if it comes down,' it's 'when it comes down.'"

Celia said after this storm, she is considering removing some of her favorite trees.

"I don't want to cut it down because it shades our whole front yard, but supposedly Siberian Elms are a no-go for safety so maybe I'll consider killing that one," she said.

If you have a fallen tree on personal property like your backyard or front yard you will have to hire a tree removal service. If there are fallen trees on roads, powerlines, or city property you can report those to the city or power company and crews will help clean up the damage.

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Rocky Mountain Power reported that at one point Friday morning, about 3,500 customers in Cottonwood Heights, Sandy and surrounding areas were impacted by a power outage. By 5 p.m., that number was down to less than 700 across Salt Lake County.

Wind damage isn't the only concern with the warmer storm headed Utah's way. Officials are also preparing for possible flooding.

Utah has had an intense winter season with even more snow piling on earlier this week. Emergency management officials are staying vigilant after learning lessons from the last big spring flooding that happened 13 years ago.

"Next week will be good because it will get some snow off the hills, and that's what we want. We want that warm up, then we want the cool down," explained Assistant Chief Paul Brenneman with the Cottonwood Heights Police Department.

In 2010, the weather took a turn very quickly, causing a dense snowpack to melt rapidly.

The warmth caused significant flooding, especially along Little Cottonwood Creek in Murray City and Cottonwood Heights, but Brenneman said county engineers mobilized to prevent it from happening again.

"In 2011, the following year, we actually had higher stream flows that year," explained Brenneman, who also works as an emergency manager for the city. "Due to the work of Salt Lake County flood control, we didn't have those issues. We were worried about it, but we didn't have the same issues."

This year, those engineers and crews are back at it, already working behind the scenes to prevent a repeat of the 2010 flooding.

"Making sure the stream beds are clear of debris and working on the retention ponds and doing those types of things," Brenneman said. "They are very aware of it and they are great partners to work with."