yes, it very well could have been a haboob, BUT they said it was partly cloudy and calm.
in order for a haboob(microburst too) to occur you need a thunderstorm and gust front with said t-storm.
i don't know what the topography of that area is like, but a mountainado is a possibility too.
you can get highly damaging winds out of these things and not a cloud in the sky.  mountainadoes can arise from interaction
of a surface based dust devil with much stronger winds aloft, which in turn strengthen an
already existing dust devil. winds have been reported out of these things at over 100km/h!

-----Original Message-----
From:   Bill Marshall [SMTP:Willolyn99@AOL.COM]
Sent:   Tuesday, August 13, 2002 8:59 AM
To:     vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject:        Re: Trip got interesting

Haboob -- been there, done that, had to brush my teeth after.  When I lived
outside of Phoenix (Avondale), a nice brown cloud Haboob came ripping through
one day.  My poor little ash tree started leaning from the gale and one of
the wires came off.  I ran outside and grabbed the tree, holding the tree
upright with one arm while trying to rewire the supports with my free hand.
No fun.  Well, actually, it was kind of fun, except for ingesting lots of
dust.  After it passed, I got the tree fixed and took a long shower.  The
dirt mixed with the shower water looked like chocolate milk.  Not quite as
tasty.  The cool part is watching the front of the cloud move in over Phoenix
from the news helicopters.  Looks like a brown tidal wave.  You're lucky you
had a clean one!

Bill Marshall
85 GL Tiico
Bradenton FL (traded the Haboob for hurricanes)