Dust Bowl 2015

Last night, we awoke on three separate occasions to fire alarms going off in our complex.  There was no fire, but something was going on.  As the night wore on, I could smell something in the air, but it wasn't smoke.  By the time I woke up at 4:30am to workout, I walked downstairs to find the entire house completely covered in dust, despite the fact that all of the windows and doors were closed.  As I looked outside, I found dust everywhere!  What appeared to be fog was really a tremendous amount of dust in the air, and the sky was completely orange.  Overnight the dust had actually seeped in through cracks around doors and windows.

Orange sky and dusty fog all around the complex

Dusty kitchen table

The back patio

I suffered through an indoor workout of Insanity, finding it very difficult to breathe through all of the dust in the house.  Shortly after, my neighbor came over to compare houses, and we got the message that we were in a severe dust storm and that school was cancelled.

The girls were thrilled to have a day off of school, but we soon realized that it would not be much fun.  We stayed in lock-down in the playroom where there was the least amount of dust and continued to struggle breathing throughout the day.  Finally, we decided to head to the mall, hoping that it wasn't as bad there.  During our drive, the girls pointed out the Torch building by the mall and how it looked like it was covered in mud.

Our View of the Torch

What the Torch Normally Looks Like

Once we got to the mall, we found that it had been hit by the dust inside as well.  No stores or restaurants were ready to open because they were cleaning up the dust.  We attempted to go watch a movie then, but so did everybody else in Doha that were trying to escape the dust.  We took one look at the long line and decided to leave.  Finally, we drove to another mall and were able to eat at Chili's.  Then we walked around the toy stores to kill time and breathe fresh air.

By time we got back home, the dust had settled, and the air was breathable again.  All that was left was a huge mess to clean up, but at least we survived our first Middle East dust storm!