North Phoenix neighborhood hit hard by monsoon storm

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - The morning after the monsoon storm hit, Jen Albright is still trying to figure out how it happened.

"I didn't even hear it, it woke me up, I didn't know what happened," she said. "We got I think the worst of it. I was surprised our other trees, none of our trees went down."

The huge tree in the backyard next door came crashing down through the roof of Albright's garage during one of the biggest monsoon storms that's blown through the area in years.

"This was all hanging down here," Albright said. "You can see all the brick here is completely separated, broken."

Al Brown has lived near Shea and 37th Street for 28 years and says last night the winds were whistling.

"About a quarter after five the bottom fell out of the storm," he said. "Personally, I think it was a microburst that blew through here. I don't know."

Whatever it was snapped power poles in half, leaving thousands without electricity. APS crews worked through the night and well into the afternoon to make repairs.

Sharon Ring was also up early cleaning up a tree in her front yard. Like her neighbors, Ring describes last night as intense.

"It was touching the sidewalk over there," she said. "The rain was going horizontal, it was white, white, pure white, everything was flying everywhere."

Albright says the damage inside is just as bad as the outside.

"We were absolutely fortunate that it fell mainly here," she said.

But that can be fixed and what matters most is that everyone survived the storm.