Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Big Storm

Wednesday, July 21 was just like most other days. The kids and I had been swimming and I had checked the weather. There was no chance of rain in the forecast. We headed home around 4:00, all the kids bathed and I showered and as I got out of the shower I thought, "It sure does seem dark outside."

Right at 5:00, it started to rain heavy -- so heavy that there was all this loud noise on the deck. I thought it was because the rain was knocking the acorns out of the big Oak tree and when they hit the deck it is a very loud sound . . . but when I looked at the deck I could see it was very large marble sized hail. I called all the kids to come and look at the hail.

And then the wind picked up . . . and yes, again it sounded like a freight train I could just see another of our trees start to fall and was starting to run for the basement when the power went out and it was all quiet again.

But the damage was done. In our front yard, 1 huge tree down -- with the roots and everything standing straight up. In our back yard 4 more large trees down (and this time they took the fence with them) and in the wilderness area behind our house another very large tree down.

Our generator kicked on (thank goodness for that!) Our generator runs a small panel of the whole house so we have about 10 outlets, lights in the upstairs bathrooms, lights in the master bedroom, and the TV outlets in the family room. Most importantly it runs the fridge and the well pump so that we have water.

We had a similar storm / tornado just a few months before and so I assumed maybe things would be back to normal soon -- but this storm was much more fierce than the other. Julianne was at a friends house and they were unable to even get her home as all the surrounding streets were closed with trees down. It took Trent over an hour to drive his normally 15 minute drive (and that required going around 2 barricades, driving around fallen trees, and under hanging wires).

In short, we were without power for 48 hours. It was a mess. Here are some pictures from my iphone.


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