Wind Storm Aftermath Mirrors A Movie Scene

Act 1 scene 1 — “Palm Springs Turned Upside Down.”

“A pretty scary movie scene,” Palm Springs resident Julie Wolf said. “I watched the pine tree across in my neighbor’s (yard) just keel over. Right into their patio. And then another one.”

Miles away, Stewart Soloff and his family experienced the same shock as they watched winds whip a power line into their pool.

“Near the transformer, there was a big explosion. Then all the power went off,” Stewart Soloff said.

When the transformer started spraying their shelter with oil, the Soloffs evacuated their home.

“The three of us were running around crazily trying to figure out ‘What do we save?’ My wife was thinking ‘Do we take the family photos?’ I grabbed the passports,” Soloff said.

Their most essential and prized possessions in hand — they left their home to the hands of nature. Soloff says the wind knocked on his neighbor’s door as well.

“They had been renovating this house for months to prepare for this big party, it looked like a wedding. The storm hit and their tents were blown across Sunrise,” he said.

Just down the street, “I was devastated. I had tears in my eyes, walking. Because I saw this wall that used to block between the houses and it was gone,” Kurt Bauer said of the home he was house-sitting for friends.

While Palm Springs residents deal with the aftermath of the high winds, motorists deal with the closure of Gene Autry Trail from Vista Chino to Interstate 10.

“You can’t get to Desert Hot Springs any way. I thought the roads would be open,” driver Nadine McCallum said.

“It will take several days longer because of the height of the pole,” Louis Davis of Southern California Edison said.

Storm gone, but the story isn’t over.

“They are digging up all this grass because it’s covered in oil. A lot of these trees will have to come out,” Soloff said. “For a while we thought we were in the middle of a bio hazard.”

When the desert goes right side up again, people will just be left with the memory of wind storm 2012.

“It’s like some monster came and grabbed it and pulled it up. That’s how it felt,” Wolf said.

A monster she hopes never gets a starring role in her movie again.