COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado weather was not kind on Friday evening and into Saturday morning across the Front Range. A powerful system brought with it gusts equal to a category one hurricane. Trucks toppled over onto the interstate, and trees were ripped from the ground. News 5 spoke with one family that had only moments to react to a tree crashing into their driveway.
In a Rockrimmon neighborhood, three trees were ripped from the ground on Friday evening according to those living there. Timothy Schardt said the first tree to fall was outside of his home. He said his wife saw it first. "She saw what she maybe thought was the branch of the pine tree, but it was actually the whole tree falling down past the window... It was just howling. The whole house was like shaking. It was just unbelievable," said Schardt.
The next tree to fall was across the street, very close to where Leo Villarreal and his parents live. He said his family happened to look out the window and see the tree swaying, and they had just enough time to move their cars from the driveway. The tree came within a few feet of hitting the actual home. "Just barely missed my house, so we got pretty lucky," said Villarreal.
In a different neighborhood off of Garden of the Gods Road, another concerned neighbor said the wind was so strong it knocked over shipping containers. Ron Graham-Becker said the neighborhood has had issues with noise from the business where the shipping containers are located. Graham-Becker said the company, called 3G Venture II, constructed a wall of shipping containers around their property to try and contain the noise. "The owner of that business decided that the best solution would be to surround the building with shipping containers and stack them as high as he could and get the noise mitigated... My concern at that time was that come fall there was going to be a big windstorm like there always is, every fall. And here we are, and these containers have been knocked over by a big windstorm," said Graham-Becker.
Graham-Becker said he would like to see the city get involved in the shipping container situation, because he said it's not safe. News 5 reached out to the city for comment, and will keep you updated on how they respond.
