The Wind Began to Switch,

The house to twitch and suddenly the .........so you get the idea! We've had 3 REALLY horrific storms run through town in the past week. The first one caught us completely off guard and left poor Auntie Peggy without power from 4PM last Friday until 10AM this past Tuesday. The second one came through late Friday night during Deirdre's recital as I mentioned in a previous post. Then yesterday came the Daddy of the storms!!!

While Patrick and I hauled tents and chairs up to Auntie Peggy's for Grandpa's big 85th birthday bash, we figured the kids could enjoy a nice refreshing dip in the local pool, as we have been in the 90's of late. As we dropped them off we warned them that it would be a VERY SHORT dip as not only would we be back as soon as the van was unloaded but that the clouds building in the west surely meant another storm was looming. Not a minute after we unloaded the last chair and slammed down the hatch the first drops of rain were falling! The girls protested mightily at being pulled from the pool as there had been no sign of lightening and "it's okay to swim when it's just rain".....


The 4 minute drive home was in an ever increasing downpour and just as we dashed in the front door the first crack of lightening flashed! Less than 5 minutes later we were huddled in the basement with tornado sirens blaring. I don't think we will ever have to fight them out of the water due to rain ever again!!!

So, this is what my sister Jen's front lawn looks like in the aftermath! Yes, she has lost power now and it will probably be days before it comes back on as countless power lines are down. I live a mere six blocks away....but the trees in our neighborhood had the good sense to fall away from the power lines (: The flip side to that good news is that my house has become air conditioning and TV central!!! Last night there were 9 people sleeping in 5 beds at my house.....

This power line was lucky that the offending tree only spat a branch on it's path....

while it that tangle there is not only a line but a transformer knocked to the ground. There's LOTS of that yellow caution tape closing off many a street in town today!

What the weathermen mean when they say that trees are uprooted!!!

All of these pictures were taken in the first two blocks as I tried to navigate the limb cluttered streets after picking Andrew and Alyssa.

Owners of power saws will surely become the best of neighbors in the next days as it will be a long while before the city crews will be able to clear up the countless trees and limbs blown off by the 70 mile per hour winds!!! No tornado...just wind...anyone looking for some wood chip mulch??