Fence still in tree a not-so-subtle reminder of Weber County’s rare tornado
A section of a wooden fence sits high in a tree in the backyard of Macy Moon, of Washington Terrace, on April 7, 2017. The fence was deposited there by a tornado that hit the neighborhood on Sept. 22, 2016.
A section of a wooden fence (center, background) sits high in a tree in the backyard of Macy Moon, of Washington Terrace, on April 7, 2017. The fence was deposited there by a tornado that hit the neighborhood on Sept. 22, 2016.
WASHINGTON TERRACE — There’s an old saying: “Good fences make good neighbors.” But what happens when those good neighbors start complaining about a fence?
OK, so nobody’s really complaining yet, but it’s not difficult to imagine that day will come. Because high in a tree in Macy Moon’s Washington Terrace backyard, perched precariously over the family’s heretofore well-used trampoline, rests a large section of wooden fence.
It’s been up there since Sept. 22, 2016 — the day a rare tornado touched down in the Terrace and other parts of Weber County.
“It looks like an ill-fated treehouse,” the mother of five said.
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Moon admits she isn’t good at estimating distances, but she figures the fence is maybe 40 feet up in the tree. And now that it’s been there for more than six months, folks are starting to take notice.
“It’s become a little bit of a joke,” Moon admits. “Once in awhile a neighbor asks, ‘Are you going to get it down?’ I just look at them and say ‘How?'”
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Moon cautions to be careful what you wish for. Just the week before the tornado, Moon was saying that she really wanted to replace the chain-link fence surrounding her backyard with a wooden one.
“So I guess the neighbors decided to donate some of it,” she said with a laugh.
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The day of the tornado is still etched in Moon’s memory.
“I was on my way to teaching an art class, and I came outside and saw this dark sky and all this debris blowing around,” she recalls. “I went back inside and told everybody to get in the basement.”
They could hear the wind “rumbling” outside the house.
“It was like a roar,” she said. “And then the power went out.”
After the storm, the family went outside to survey the damage. That’s when someone noticed the section of fence, sitting pretty as can be, midway up the tree.
“We were, like, ‘What’s that?’ ” Moon said. “At first, we thought it was part of someone’s house. But looking closer, we realized it was a wood fence.”
Moon assumed the weight of the snow this winter would have brought the fence down out of the tree, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere — although few slats have come loose.
“Every once in awhile we see another plank on the ground,” she said. “We thought we could throw something up there and maybe knock it down, but it’s caught pretty tight in two or three branches. We’d have to climb up there to get it down.”
Still, as secure as Moon’s tornado souvenir seems, she’s nervous about letting her five children — ranging in age from 8 months to 11 years — anywhere near that tree.
“I can’t let them play in the backyard if there’s even a little bit of a breeze,” she said. “But I just don’t know how to get it down.”
If there’s one good thing that came from last fall’s tornado, Moon says it’s spurred the family to be prepared for such emergencies. They’ve since accumulated 72-hour kits, food storage and all sorts of emergency supplies.
“We’re super-prepared now,” she says.
The family has joked about getting some paintball guns and using the fence for target practice, or somehow putting Christmas lights on it in December. Although, Moon points out, if they could get up there to put lights on the fence, they’d probably just take it down.
As funny as the misplaced fence might be, there’s a sad side to our tale. Moon says the traumatic experience of going through that tornado haunts her 11-year-old to this day.
“My daughter cries every time it rains now,” she said.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.