High Winds Kill Man, Close Roads in Sierra

Freak winds reaching more than 115 m.p.h. in the Eastern Sierra killed a Bishop man, popped out dozens of car windows, damaged buildings and forced highway closures, authorities said Tuesday.

Six boats sank at Crowley Lake and others were damaged when the wind ripped docks off their moorings. Several tent cabins at the lake were destroyed by wind, flying debris and downed trees, authorities said.

“It blew the roof off my trailer, blew windows out,” said Don Rupp, 46, of Crowley Lake. “I was down at the harbor last night and it was pretty torn up. I couldn’t really see what all the damage was because there was too much dust blowing.”

Alvin Redowl, 46, of Bishop was struck and apparently impaled by a tree limb blown down by the ferocious winds late Monday afternoon, an Inyo County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said. Redowl was rushed to Northern Inyo Hospital but died Monday night.

At Mammoth-June Lakes Airport beside U.S. 395, the wind blew windows out of 64 cars parked in a long-term parking lot Tuesday morning, the Mono County Sheriff’s Department said. A parked airplane was destroyed and hangars and offices at the airport were damaged.

Instruments measured the strongest gusts at 115 m.p.h., Mono County officials said.

Falling trees and branches broke electrical power lines in several locations, cutting off power to about 6,000 people in Bishop, Mammoth Lakes and other communities.

“When the strong gusts came, there was just a cloud of dust,” said Lisa Kuznitz, 33, who manages the Sierra Gables Motel in Crowley Lake. “I have friends who had the windows blown out of their cars, and we had three aspen trees blow down in front of the motel.”

Officials closed U.S. 395 between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes for several hours Monday night because of high winds, briefly stranding travelers. Blowing dust cut visibility on other roads.

A large dust cloud raised off Owens Dry Lake blocked views of the Sierra Nevada, and air pollution officials said the wind also kicked up a massive dust storm at Mono Lake.

In Independence, a county road crew trying to remove a tree limb that fell cross a road was forced to call off its efforts because of the danger of other trees blowing down.

“We sent a crew out, but one or two more trees came down and some of the others looked a little shaky so we barricaded the area until the wind quit,” said Jim Gooch of the Inyo County Road Department.

In the Wilkerson Ranch area outside Bishop, six-foot-long cedar fence boards went flying through the air “just like you would see in the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ ” said Cpl. Scott Stell of the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department. “People were afraid to even go outside with those boards flying around the way they were.”

An unoccupied mobile home was knocked on its side and damaged in Independence, but no one was injured.