Many people still powerless after massive dust storm

APS said it has nearly 50 power poles down in the Buckeye area. At the height of Thursday's storm, some 3,500 customers were without power. By Friday, that number was down to about 1,600.

While APS is working to repair those downed line, the utility is anticipating that several hundred of its customers could be without electricity until about 8 p.m.

Tartesso Elementary School was closed Friday due to the power outages.

ORIGINAL STORY

A massive dust storm bowled over the Valley Thursday evening, bringing the evening commute to a halt as visibility was reduced to zero in many areas and high winds caused damage that turned the power off to thousands of customers.

The cloud of dust looked to be devouring local land marks as it stretched across the city and swept over downtown Phoenix, the Glendale arena and Sky Harbor Airport.

Wind gusts up to 56mph were recorded in the Valley, with most areas seeing winds in the 40mph range.

One of the the worst hit areas was the Buckeye area, where APS reports 30 power poles were blown over between Woods road and Cotton center.

3,500 customers lost power, with repairs expected to take well past Thursday night.

SRP reported up to 6,500 customers lost power at the height of the storm. Power was restored to more than 4,000 customers shortly afterwards.

RECORDED WIND GUSTS:

Luke Air Force Base 56 mph

Chase Field 51

South Mountain 51

Sky Harbor 51

Goodyear 48

Peoria 48

Glendale 47

Deer Valley 46

Scottsdale 43

East Phoenix 42

The Department of Public Safety issued a warning to drivers as the storm rolled through:

•DPS recommends motorists seeing a dust storm approaching exit the freeway/highway at the first available off ramp.

•If you find yourself in a dust storm with limited visibility, slow down and use the lines on the roadway to guide you.

•If you find you’re in a dust storm without visibility, pull completely off the freeway/highway into the dirt. Turn your lights off, take your foot off the brake, due not use your emergency flashers. Wait for the storm to pass.

•If your lights are on while you are pulled over during a dust storm, you stand a good chance of being struck by motorists trying to follow you thinking you’re still moving along the roadway.

•Always stay in your vehicle with your safety belt fastened. Never exit until the dust storm has passed.

14,000 Tucson power customers still without service after powerful overnight storm.

Tucson Electric Power crews were working to restore power to some 14,000 customers still without service Thursday afternoon in the wake of a powerful overnight storm.

Power was restored by morning to 21,000 customers also hit by the storm-caused outages.

Tucson Electric Co. spokesman Joe Salkowski says the power loss centered on two problem transformers in the same substation. Each affected some 6,000 customers.

About 12,500 customers remained out of service mostly on the city's north and northeast sides, but sporadic outages continued for about 1,500 others because of 26 downed utility poles and smaller damaged transformers.

The National Weather Service says as much as 2.2 inches of rain fell overnight.

Heavy rains hit Phx

Early in the week we got hit pretty hard by a decent rain storm. It was good to see some rain come our way! They said it was supposed to rain today, but now that has changed...

My video of a BIG storm in the middle of the Arizona desert!

We were out in a great, fun place called Bumble Bee located in Arizona, when I could see this HUGE storm front moving in on us from the north. We all bunkered down in the car and enjoyed the amazing event!

Check out the video I took:

Big storm here last night!

I was working out with my bowflex in the garage late last night when I started to think I was hearing things.

At first I thought someone was stealing our trash cans from behind our gate, because you have to roll them over the small rocks we have for ground cover. After about 5 minutes of wondering what was going on outside I thought it would be a good idea to go out there and check.

To my happy surprise it was thunder from a huge monsoon storm coming my way! All that noise was thunder! The lightening was so cool to look at! The rain was starting to fall in large drops so I went back inside to watch from the window.

After about 10 minutes of watching a super cool lightening and rain storm I went off to bed. It was no surprise to wake up to a calm and bright blue day in the morning, that's how most of our storms here in AZ are. What I was shocked to see though was our park...FLOODED! and I mean flooded. I have never seen so much rain fall in this area before.

Check out the picture I took:



I hope we get another storm like this one in the daytime so we all can enjoy it a little more!

Still learning...

Wow!
Just finished up with the settings and other custom features with this blog. Jeez, there's so much you can do with it! Very cool.

When I get more time I'll try and add some cool tips and tricks for tweaking your profile and settings.

I also want to add some content about Google AdSense and how to help get the most out of it. Everyone loves to make money and Google really has it down for use webmasters and internet lovers to make a little extra cash from time to time. So look forward to some really great Google AdSense tips and tricks!

I also have a lot of great pictures from the last monsoon storm here in Arizona! What a awesome storm it was. I can't wait to show you the pictures I took.

Have a great night!