In every life a little rain must fall.
It never rains but it pours.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Etc., etc., etc.
When I last blogged I mentioned that severe weather was on the way. Well, the forecast was not wrong. We began having showers a little before noon yesterday, and the sky was very ominous all day. A little before two the storms began, and I switched to the local ABC affiliate to see what was happening. The local weather guy began tracking what was happening locally, and bless his heart, he was on until about 10:30 p.m. I wasn’t with him the whole time, but I’ll explain that.
The storm spawned a tornado which touched down in the south part of “our fair city”, curved toward the airport, went back up, then headed downtown. There the force of the winds were strong enough to topple the steeple of one of our landmark beauties, First United Methodist Church. (Sorry, I don’t have a before picture, but the church is at the end of a street which inclines upward so that it has the sky as a background---very dramatic, very beautiful.) Unfortunately, a car had stopped for the red traffic light in front of the church.
The man in the car crushed by the church steeple was not killed, nor critically injured. He has a broken sternum, wrist, a few other injuries, and will have to wear a body cast for a few weeks, He was unconscious only a brief time, and was aware of the effort to get him out of the car which took almost an hour. Everyone thinks that is a miracle, and I do too. Look at that car!
It kept raining throughout the afternoon. Jaz had asked me to pick up Oyster at her after school program because she, Jaz, had a five o’clock dental appointment. (That’s a whole ‘nother story.) A woman from the program walked her out under an umbrella in the downpour. I almost lost it when she gasped just after we drove away, and she said she'd left her webkind in the bldg. Of course, she shouldn't have had it there in the first place. So, I drove around the block and got out with umbrella to take her back in to get it. A couple of hrs. later we wouldn't have been able to get out of that neighborhood due to flooding. I stayed at their (Chill & Jaz's) house until Jaz came in from the dentist's, and I arrived home just as another of the major storms started, about 6:45 p.m. Of course, it was raining the whole time I was driving around with lightening and thunder, but the streets weren't flooded yet. However, by 7:15 Stratford, the street beside my house and where my driveway is, was flooded and stayed that way about three hrs. until it finally went down to curb level. When I arrived home, had closed the gate, but was back under the carport gathering my stuff, there were two separate lightening flashes followed by deafening thunder, the kind that vibrates your bones, really scared the bejeebers out of me, and I began to wonder if I could make the run over to the house without getting struck by lightening. Obviously, I did, quaking all the way.
Anyway the rest of the evening was spent checking the weather news which included several more "rotation" warnings but no more tornadoes. There were apparently three in the afternoon: the one which hit our city, one in the city across the river, and one which hit a small town which is a few miles east of there. There a tree fell onto a house cutting it in half. Thousands are/were without power across the area, and many won't have it back until sometime Saturday. So far it's been o.k. at my house with only a couple of flickers. This is rare as our neighborhood is usually one of the first to go.
This morning as the light finally came I discovered that a Ford Explorer (?) had gotten stuck in my back neighbor’s yard. A police car sat behind it this morning for about an hour until the wrecker came to tow it away. I knew a number of foolish people kept driving down the street beside my house last night. What part of don't drive into flooded streets is so hard to understand?
There was one fatality---a 20 yr. old drove into a tree, and two other cars also hit the tree at different times. However, the accident report was not very clear, so I'm not sure what happened there. That was in NW part of the city in the vicinity of one of the lakes. All the schools were closed today and a number of streets as well. It's been a genuine mess. I'm feeling very lucky.
Here you can see how far up into the yard the flood water came shown by the leaf line.
This evening my weather guy said our neighborhood had 7.15 inches of rain. Added to the 15 inches we've already received this month we've more than set a new record for October here. I sincerely hope we don't beat the Nov. record this year.
But, guess what! When I checked the area that was flooded I found some gifts. I’m thinking there will be a pecan pie in my holiday menu this year. YUM...my favorite.
Sometimes life gives you NUTS.
