Did you hear those winds?

"Mom, come home. A tree just fell on our house."

That would be my son, Jack, calling me at work. The big old spruce tree in our front yard had finally yielded to the hours of wind last Thursday, April 11, and toppled over from the roots up, barely missing his bedroom.

In precise meteorological terms, National Weather Service Duluth meteorologist Mike Stewart called Thursday's combination of heavy snow and wind "brutal."

Stewart said the Cloquet area saw sustained high winds most of the day with wind gusts between 45- and 55 mph, and a 58 mph gust at 3:19 p.m.

Our tree came down in the afternoon, before the snow started.

"It was a strong spring storm, but not necessarily unusual," Stewart said, pointing out that there are often strong storms in spring and fall, when the seasons and temperatures are changing. "A lot more trees probably would have gone down if they'd had leaves to act as a barrier."

Still, our home in the heart of Cloquet was not the only building damaged, our conifer not the only tree to fall that day.

Just after noon on Thursday, the Cloquet police department sent out an alert to avoid 11th Street at Carlton Avenue because of a fallen tree blocking the road. City crews had cleared the road by 1:30, when police sent out another update. (Note: If you have a cell phone or internet, sign up for the CPD Nixle messaging service - it's great.)

Police patrol commander Carey Ferrell said he's heard at least a half-dozen trees fell in the high winds.

Over in the Sunnyside neighborhood, Linda Erickson said two different neighbors each lost a tree.

On the opposite side of town, up past Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, Wade Lamirande said one of his neighbor's massive white pines fell across both their yards, smashing Lamirande's fence and landing on his shed. The next morning, the neighbor's house across the street caught on fire. (No one was hurt, but they had fire and water damage.)

In the meantime, over in Carlton, Pine Knot News writer Timothy Soden-Groves watched his own storm story unfold.

The top of a white pine in the front yard of his neighbor's house on Ashland Avenue broke off, then broke off more large limbs from an adjacent white pine in his yard, before all the tree parts came crashing down onto a power pole around 3:40 p.m. that day.

"The pole came down with the limbs, crashing into the street," Soden-Groves said. "The transformer on the pole then exploded and started a fire in the downed limbs."

Suddenly he had to get off the phone to Minnesota Power about the downed line so he could call the fire department. Carlton Fire and Rescue responded and put out the fire.

Of course, the power was out. Minnesota Power line crews arrived and worked in the terrible weather that afternoon and evening to restore power to the neighborhood.

According to NWS meteorologist Stewart, the amount of snow that fell varied greatly, with parts of Carlton County getting 5-6 inches and places in the Iron Range receiving more than a foot.

Soden-Groves said the crew worked until 10 p.m. to "replace the pole and transformer, reattach the power lines, restore power, and clean up the street."

Dan the Tree Man (Dan Tarr) got to our house almost as quickly as Minnesota Power, as he lives in the neighborhood and had trimmed that tree for us a couple years before. He figured the tree wasn't going to budge from its resting space and arrived with a bucket truck to cut it into pieces Saturday morning.

It was exciting to watch, especially when they had to cut the top off the tree - which was hanging over our neighbor's roof. They tied a rope to it and things came down just fine, with minimal swearing. And then the tree was just a huge pile of branches and giant logs covering the ground between our house and the neighbors'.

We are just glad it wasn't a lot worse.

It was the middle of the day, but school was canceled so of course Jack was sitting on his bed, playing the insanely popular video game Fortnite.

"I could have died," he told me later. "That was a near-death experience, that's my takeaway."

Close, but not a scratch on him or even a tree limb through the window.

Yes, the house was damaged, but it can be fixed.

And now we have even more stories to tell the grandchildren someday. But hopefully not for a long while.

Send your own storm stories and photos to Pine Knot News editor Jana Peterson and we'll post them on our Facebook page to share with all the world.