Northern Colorado winds cause structure to collapse near Windsor

Recent wind gusts in Northern Colorado caused one small business to have to tear down what remained of their tent structure. The industrial tent, located east of Windsor on Highway 392, was destroyed after the windstorm late last week.

"It's gone. We are cutting it up with grinding wheels just to get it out of the way," said Jeremy Gourd, the owner of the property.

Gourd said he was away from the property, watching on his Ring doorbell camera, when he noticed the steel and tarp structure was failing.

"I could see the tent from it, and it was already starting to balloon," Gourd said.

It only took him minutes to get to the property, where he ran through the wind and into the tent in an effort to save it.

"By the time I got here from the house in Windsor, it was already pretty much wanting to take off out of the ground. Some of the ribs had lifted out of the ground. There wasn't much I could do at that point," Gourd said. "I went in there and tried to help. I went to open the big door on the east end here to let the air through it. As I was doing that, the whole thing started lifting up, and I got the heck out of Dodge."

Gourd said he retreated from the shelter, the wind taking his hat and blowing it onto another property as he tried to get to safety.

"I wasn't going to risk my life over something like this," Gourd said.

He called 911 to report that the steel tent structure posed a risk to blocking traffic on the highway if it continued to blow to the south. A sheriff's deputy responded, as did state patrol and the Colorado Department of Transportation. CDOT was able to latch the structure to some of their machinery and drag it away from the roadway.

Monday afternoon Gourd and some of his peers were on the property dismantling the crumpled structure. He said it is a complete loss and will have to be replaced. His team was trying to make piles of metal while also having to deal with the snow that arrived overnight.

"It just happens to be that Mother Nature wants to smack us again, here," Gourd said.

Gourd said he has noticed that winds have become more of a concern in recent years, but never expected them to destroy his property.

"I don't know what is going on with all the winds this year. We might as well get used to being Wyoming now," Gourd said.