PHOENIX (AP) — Crews cleaned up downed trees and got electricity mostly restored for thousands of people Tuesday after a powerful dust storm roared through the Phoenix area.
The wall of dust towering hundreds of feet (meters) high dwarfed the city's neighborhoods. Called a haboob, the wind-driven phenomenon blackened skies and initially knocked out electricity for 55,000 customers late Monday afternoon.
Drenching rain followed. Flights came to a halt at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where material from a terminal roof blew onto the tarmac. Contractors worked through the night to repair roof damage, airport spokesperson Jon Brodsky said.
By Tuesday afternoon, things were mostly back to normal, with power largely restored and only minor flight delays reported.
But for residents in metro Phoenix, the haboob was both frightening and spectacular.
Bernae Boykin Hitesman was driving her son and daughter, ages 9 and 11, home from school when the storm arrived in Arizona City, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) southeast of Phoenix.
She quickly pulled over as the storm engulfed the car. “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face if I put my hand outside,” she said.
Boykin Hitesman could taste the dust and feel the strong wind rattling her car until it finally passed about 15 minutes later.
“I was nervous,” she said. “My kids were really, really scared, so I was trying to be brave for them.”
In the suburb of Gilbert, bird feeders fell from swaying trees at the home of retired university professor Richard Filley. Fine dust got into “every little crack and space,” he said.
“The windstorm part of it, I’m glad it’s gone,” he said. “You look at the photos of haboobs, and they are a spectacular natural phenomenon. They are kind of beautiful in their own way.”
Not all dust storms are haboobs, which are specifically associated with downdrafts from thunderstorms. The phenomenon usually happens in flat, arid areas and is not unusual in Arizona.
The rain that followed was welcome in Phoenix, where conditions have been drier than usual this year.
The desert city usually gets roughly 7 inches (18 centimeters) of annual precipitation, with a third to half of that falling during the monsoon season of on-and-off thunderstorms between mid-June and mid-September.
But so far it has recorded only about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of precipitation, or more than 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) below normal, according to the National Weather Service.
That includes the almost one-third of an inch (8 millimeters) of rain that came with Monday's haboob, according to Tom Frieders, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Phoenix.
“It’s not going to make a big dent,” Frieders said.
Parts of southeast and north-central Arizona, meanwhile, have had a fair amount of rain, according to meteorologist Mark O’Malley with the weather service in Phoenix.
“But that’s typical for a monsoon, very hit and miss,” he said.
The weather was warm and clear in the Phoenix area Tuesday, with scattered thunderstorms giving way to hot and dry weather through the rest of the week.
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Golden reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contributed.
Ross Franklin And Hallie Golden, The Associated Press
