Sunday started out very warm and very humid. We had a warm humid week in fact. Our only event for Sunday was a cub scout meeting where they were getting their whittling chips. So when the high-wind warning came on the news, I didn't think much of it.
We headed to the meeting at 2pm and the den leader insisted that we meet in his back yard, until the kids almost blew away. At about 2:30, the power went out and we all laughed. The meeting was a mixture of learning how to use a knife and watching things blow around. By 3pm, I was getting worried and we hurried out of the meeting fighting our way through the wind to our car. As we climbed in, I heard a crack like thunder, but there was no lightening.
As we left the den leader's street, I noticed all the roofing shingles lifting off in the wind and the neighbors and kids were outside watching it. It seemed like a good time to be inside the safety of your house to me.
Coming around the bend of the den leader's development, I noticed a pear tree snapped in half in a yard. I concluded that the crack I had heard was probably a large branch breaking off a tree.
The ride home was scary. We passed many large limbs on the road and debris was blowing everywhere. At one point, we approached a loose cable whipping from a pole. It could have been telephone, or cable or even power, but it wasn't arcing, so I just told myself that the rubber tires would protect us. It hit the windshield and scraped across the roof of the car as we passed. about 200 feet further down the road, a girls soccer game was still in progress. No one seemed to notice the chaos going on near the trees.
I had Lastborn watch for tornadoes and pressed on only feeling safe on the wider roads where the trees were well back. We breathed a sigh of relief when we entered our development. Until we saw many people in a neighbor's yard trying to clear a tree from across their driveway.
When we pulled into our driveway, DH was there with the dog on a leash and Firstborn. DH looked concerned and I wondered why he was outside with the kid. He told me he had tried to call me and said to go into the family room and check out the back yard. This was the view from the kitchen.
The root ball from a large tree, sticking up in the air. This one was just off our property, but if it had fallen in the other direction, it would have hit our family room. This tree took down a few others in a domino effect and one ended up through the roof of a house on a cul-de-sac near us. Blogger is giving me a hard time about uploading pictures, so I have to use this one. I do believe I have better ones I will try to share soon.
The storm progressed. The kids wanted to go out in it. After all, most of the neighborhood kids were out playing. I would not let them, for fear they would get hit by a tree. My husband was basically laughing at my fear and he spent the whole storm out and about. Here he is with our next door neighbor and a guy from a couple doors down. Many people were out. The warmth of the air and the lack of rain was lulling people into a false sense of confidence. By the way, the woman in the black shirt is a nurse and she had to work the ER that night. She told me the place was hopping with people who got hit with branches. Funny, that. Notice the branch by their feet.
At one point, DH and the guy next door went out to the woods to check out the fallen tree. Less than 20 minutes after they returned, we heard another crack. DH asked if I could see what had fallen I noticed that there was a lot more light coming through out there. He looked, and another big tree, this time on our property, had come down. Again, in the right direction. It fell on a neighbor's shed. Just like the last tree, this one had taken several others with it.
At this point, the boys from the cul-de-sac across the street came to see if Ken wanted to play outside. They though this was a lark, so I brought them to the family room to see how bad it really was. Of course, as boys, they thought this was great, but they did get a little more appreciation for the size of this storm. I didn't want to send them home through it, but I worried that their mom would worry and I had no phone at this time to call her. Within 5 minutes of their arrival, a large branch fell off one of the ornamental pears in our front yard. This was the final convincing they needed to be careful and they ran home.
But they returned in about 10 minutes. So my boys spent the afternoon playing a board game that one of the neighbor boys made up.
Then the other ornamental pear in our front yard came down.
By 6 the winds were still high, but the damage was done. By 7, it was safe to go outside again. We let the kids play on the root balls and I had a glass of wine with the neighbors.
No comments:
Post a Comment