Back To Gateway Park With Wind Damage & Disappearing Green Scum Covered Ponds

I was up early and in the pool shortly after the arrival of the sun this Sunday morning, staying in the water well over an hour.

By around noon the temperature had warmed up the outer world to 90 degrees and thus was sufficiently warm to enjoy some aerobic stimulation.

My choice for aerobic stimulation was to return to Gateway Park's mountain bike trails once again. And once again I found some new trails.

Yesterday I mentioned the green scum covered pond that had a disc golf hole next to it. Today that green scum covered pond was totally dried up. I know it got to a record breaking 108 yesterday, but that much heat really does not explain the disappearing green scum covered pond.

In the above picture you are looking at my handlebars pointing to one of the disc golf holes. This disc golf hole is not the one by the former green pond covered pond. This one showed up on one of the new trails I found today, right next to the Trinity River, which flows about 30 below the level of the trail and the disc hole.

Gateway Park Trail Blocked By Windfall

I can't imagine there are many disc golfers that make it to this hole, willing to risk their disc ending up in the Trinity.

At some point in the time between Saturday's Gateway Park pedaling and today's Gateway Park pedaling a heavy wind must have blown through the park, leaving behind large pieces of trees laying across the trails in various locations.

I detected no wind at my location of sufficient strength to do this type damage in the last 24 hours. My abode is about 4 miles east of Gateway Park.

I was later told that there were reports of several micro-burst windstorms in the D/FW zone in the past 24 hours. One of those micro-bursts must have burst through Gateway Park.

I have only experienced a couple micro-bursts since I've been in the D/FW zone. One tore apart a balloon festival in Midlothian. I only saw the aftermath of that one. I've experienced, first hand, a micro-burst bursting at my current location. It was very loud and a bit unsettling.

It is almost 3:30 this Sunday afternoon and we have yet to hit 100 today. Currently it is only 98. With that vexing omnipresent humidity making it really feel like 105.

Dallas Cowboy Training Facility Destroyed By Micro-Burst, Not Tornado

Monday Update At Bottom

Last night I was puzzled when I looked at my FeedJit blog stats and saw that a large number of people were being directed to my blog when looking for information about a tornado hitting the Dallas Cowboy Stadium.

I knew we'd had a storm or two and were under Tornado Warning. But, I had heard no tornado sirens.

When I pulled the wrapper off the Sunday paper I saw what had actually happened. It was not a tornado. And it was not the Dallas Cowboy Stadium that was hit by wind.

It was the Dallas Cowboy training facility at Valley Ranch. And the wind was of the micro-burst sort with winds around 65 mph. The micro-burst struck around 3:30 in the afternoon.

There were about 70 people inside the facility when the roof was ripped off and the walls crashed down. There were 12 injuries, of which 10 were taken by ambulance to area hospitals, 7 to Los Colinas Medical Center in Irving and 3 to Parkland Memorial in Dallas. Two of the injured were able to make it as walk-ins to a Baylor medical facility.

I have experienced a micro-burst wind storm twice. Once where I am right now and another time experiencing the aftermath when a micro-burst destroyed most of what had been the Balloon Festival at Midlothian Airport. Micro-bursts are amazingly powerful, sort of scary, sort of exciting. I guess they are sort of a tornado-lite type phenomenon.

Monday, May 4 Update: Of the 12 injured by the micro-burst caused training facility collapse, scouting assistant, Rich Behm sustained a fractured spine that severed his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He had surgery at Parkland Memorial, in Dallas, the night of the collapse and is in stable condition.

Dallas Cowboys like Tony Romo and Jason Whitten were there to support the injured and their families. Dallas Cowboy owner, Jerry Jones, left the Kentucky Derby early to get back to Dallas to see the injured and their families, along with Cowboy coach, Wade Phillips. Jones and Phillips returned on Sunday, along with the other coaches and players.