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Mel's Procrastination Palace
Friday, August 25, 2006 Miss me?

Holy moses, that was bad.

Wednesday night I heard thunder. Commented on it while chatting with the bitches in IM, but didn't really think much of it. Storms are pretty common and I'm not one to panic and turn everything off at the first sign of rain.

However.... After about 4 peals of thunder, the storm/tornado sirens went off. The local siren is at the school which is only a block from my house. Loud. While it wasn't even getting dark, warning of the storm, I advised my IM friends I was gonna switch to laptop so I could go wireless and battery op. I logged off, hit power button for laptop and went to answer the phone.
Mother in law calling to warn of the realllllllly bad storm heading straight for the city. Told her sirens were going off, promised to be safe (husband was at school, so I was home alone) and hung up.

I opened the front door, which faces east and couldn't believe it. It went from calm to hurricane force winds in a matter of seconds. Faster than I've ever seen a storm come in before. Ever. Visibility disappeared like someone pulled down a screen. After that, it was like watching TV through my front window. Trees bent over, branches and sticks flew through the air like toothpicks, bouncing along the yards with amazing momentum. I watched a six foot branch get tossed around and incredibly, go right between the garage and my truck. Phew!

Leaves, and pieces of leaves shredded by the force of the wind fell like rain. I was in shock watching. Felt like I'd been dropped in the making of Twister or something.

Then it started hailing. It was nearly 85* when the storm started, so the hail melted quickly. I wasn't even immediately sure it was hailing. I could hear it--pelting the side of the house so hard I kept running to that window (yeah, I know....) and looking out to see if it was rocks or stick or other debris hitting the north side of the house. It was about then my fascination turned to fear. I'm a pretty brave person, rarely phased by a thunderstorm, but the intensity of this storm--the noise, the incessant beating of hail against the siding that I didn't think would ever stop had me wondering if I was gonna make it through.

Well, of course it did, but when it was over, the yard was littered with leaves and branches and piles of hail. The tree behind the garage was split and down. I could see wires lying on the ground. Our power was out and the wind had stopped, leaving on the sound of sirens in the stillness.

Eventually the rain stopped and I ventured outside. Down the street I could see a tree in the road. A tree was also on the roof the school across the street. Probably the most shocking was the level of water about two blocks down. It looked like a lake!

We did go out later--the level of damage was astounding. I've got pictures. I'll share them tomorrow, along with what I discovered after spending two days in the dark.

Posted by Melani Blazer :: 9:20 PM :: 2 comments

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