Winds slam Las Vegas Valley

Jace Radke

Thursday, May 11, 2000 | 11:07 a.m.

The license plates on Ed Baba's classic 1970 Chevrolet Blazer read "Slamd70," because the tricked-out truck is "slammed" so it rides low to the ground.

The truck is riding a little lower today after Wednesday's high winds toppled a 70-foot-tall elm tree that landed on the red Chevy in the 1900 block of Houston Drive.

"I was inside and I just heard this loud crash, and then the whole house shook," Baba said from his neighborhood, which is near Eastern Avenue and Charleston Boulevard. "It was like a little hurricane had blown through here."

Sustained winds buffeted the Las Vegas Valley Wednesday afternoon and evening, felling trees and power lines that left many homes and businesses without power for hours.

An official top wind speed of 61 mph from the southwest was recorded at 8:39 p.m. Wednesday at McCarran International Airport, the National Weather Service said. Gusts throughout the day topped 50 mph.

Meteorologist Steve Downs said the worst is done, as winds today are expected to drop to around 15 to 25 mph out of the northeast, dropping temperatures about 10 degrees lower than normal.

"The system is moving off to the east, and by tonight the winds will be light," Downs said, noting that breezes should be normal by Friday.

The windy conditions were caused by a frontal low-pressure system moving through the valley. A high-pressure buildup over the valley should return temperatures to the mid-80s by Friday, the norm for this time of year, Downs said.

Today's high is expected to be around 74 degrees, he said.

The winds picked up as the day went on Wednesday, hovering mostly in the 40 to 45 mph range, National Weather Service spokesman Brian Fuis said.

As soon as the tree in his front yard came crashing down, Baba went outside and tried to see what kind of damage was done to his Blazer and his 1970 Oldsmobile 442, which was parked in his driveway and was also hit by the tree.

"I started to check it out when I noticed all these bees swarming around," Baba said.

A group of about 15,000 honeybees had made a hive inside a hollow portion of the tree, and when it snapped about 7 feet up the trunk, the hive was exposed. An exterminator who was called to the house to kill the bees said he did not know if they were Africanized.

A list of areas with downed power lines and power outages read like a major street map for the city, with outages reported by Nevada Power in the areas of Maryland Parkway; Flamingo Road and Twain Avenue; Sahara Avenue; 17th Street and Oakey Boulevard; Lamb Boulevard; Las Vegas Boulevard and Pecos Road; Stephanie Street; and Hacienda and Tropicana avenues.

In other parts of town, dust became a problem, obscuring people's vision and forcing the cancellation of two high school softball playoff games at Sunset Park.

On Interstate 15 the dust was so thick that drivers reported not being able to clearly see The Strip casinos as they drove down the freeway near Russell Road.

Sun reporter Ed Koch contributed to this report.