The official word

This is what neighbor and fellow play group mom Sina saw the next day in her backyard.
The houses that you can see are on my street.  

Let me just say that the folks at the local National Weather Service are a bunch of nice guys. Nice even when they are fielding calls from ladies like me intent on finding out what the heck happened last weekend. 

It took three phone calls but I now have an answer. Kevin, the lead meteorologist, says after looking at the radar data with co-workers and my pictures that our hail/wind event was a downburst or, in his words, the storm collapsed over our neighborhood. It certainly did come fast and hard.

It was not a tornado but we DID have tornado force winds. He estimates 60-75 mph winds. Could have been higher considering the number of trees not just pushed over, but snapped in half. One of the clear indicators that it was not a tornado is that the hail and wind came together. A tornado would have come after hail. Kevin did not downplay our event and said it was not a common thing to witness.

This is a baby crane. A baby crane cannot lift a tree that size. 

This is a monster crane! The first crane you could drive around. This one takes up the whole street. Huge! Joseph loved watching out the window.

House is tarped and ready for construction. Luckily, there is an empty house on our street that the family can rent during the process. Since Mavis couldn't have her annual Halloween party at the house, we just moved the festivities to the cul-de-sac. Will completely soaked himself bobbing for apples while the big hit of the night for the kids was roasting candy over the fire pit. We also enjoyed fried apples and fried candy. When you have that much hot oil, might as well throw anything and everything in!