(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The extreme weather conditions on Monday, May 6, left many waking up without power, unaware of the damage to their homes. Among them was Kevin Talbot, who luckily woke up early in the morning to move cars out of his driveway before an old tree collapsed.
“My new car, it’s made out of wood,” Kevin Talbot said. “A tree fell this morning about 6:25 and I knew it was ready to fall because it was leaning, and I got my trucks moved out of the driveway before it fell, and then it fell shortly after I got it moved.”
For the past forty years, Talbot and his family have called this property home, he remembered the tree being there when his parents first moved in back in 1959.
“It just made a little cracking sound and that was it,” Talbot said. “It kind of went slow, so it didn’t really make a lot of noise.”
Colorado Springs Utilities said Monday morning around 7,000 people were without power. Even with a tree down, the Talbot family did not face an outage.
In other neighborhoods across Colorado Springs, similar scenes unfolded with downed trees, tangled power lines, and homes left with the brunt of the damage. Steve Jerman and his wife were walking through their neighborhood observing the aftermath of the high winds.
“It seems like the pine trees are the one to go pretty quick,” Steve Jerman said. “They don’t have as deep a root system… after a major wind event like this, I think those that cut down trees are pretty busy because it’s pretty evident that we’ve had a storm.”
Steve Jerman and his wife walked through a Colorado Springs neighborhood observing the damage from the wind.
The National Weather Service issued a high wind warning for El Paso County, which was in effect until noon on Monday.
An anemometer could be spotted on Monday morning quickly spinning in these high wind gusts.
The Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management recommended that people should avoid being outside and should use extreme caution when driving.
“Even though the worst or the highest of the winds maybe has passed, it is still significantly windy out there,” Andrew Notbohm, Executive Director, of Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management, said. ” A suggestion would be [to] wait until the winds stop, maybe looking at Wednesday or later in the week. We’re going to have strong winds today and as well as tomorrow in those 60 miles per hour range.”
Throughout Colorado Springs, the high winds were evident with many trees moving rapidly.
To report a downed tree within city limits, the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management shared Colorado Springs residents can call (719) 385-ROAD (7623) or use the city’s app, GoCOS! and if a public street tree is down to report it at https://coloradosprings.gov/tree.
