On a Dark and Windy Night

It's been years since I've felt the need to follow a weather forecast. Last night I was , once again, surprised by the weather. I knew that we were going to get rain, but had no idea what kind of thunderstorms they would be. After all, they've said 'severe thunderstorms' before and there was really nothing worth paying attention to.

So last night when Patrick asked about going to a 'surprise meeting' for the EQP, I said 'Yes'. Around 7:30 or 7:45 when the weather really got interesting I sent a text message to him 'WOW', which didn't go through, because there was so much weather activity where I was, moments later I wasn't thinking 'wow' anymore. I was thinking 'WHOA!' and 'Do I need to get the kids up and into the safest room in the house?'. I was terrified.

I was rolling spring rolls in the kitchen and was watching the rain and the wind. I could see it sort of pick the rain up from the roof and then spin it and let it down again. It made me a bit fearful of a tornado. The lights when off and immediately back on again. Then the sliding glass door got suctioned in and back out again. It was all very scary. Luckily, the kids were all in bed and asleep before it got here.

However, our neighborhood seems to have lost quite a few trees as a result of last night's wind and rain. And Gillian didn't have a school to attend today, thanks to there being no electricity.

Join us for our small storm damage tour.

Dogwood Trail We started on Dogwood Trail, one downed tree on their street, just a few doors down from Zoe's house.	Soccer Fields As you can see the soccer fields make a really nice play area for water fowl. My children thought it was a swimming pool.
Highcrest & Northridge This appears to be the largest tree we've seen down and it's caddy corner from us on North Ridge. Poor Paige. Someone's been out there for almost four hours now and is nowhere near finished.	It was a very large Bradford Pear tree that they've spent a lot of time on pruning over this past year. It's scary to see this kind of damage so close to our home.
Rockhill and High Crest The award for most impressive felled tree goes to this neighbor, about three houses away from us. They've always taken pride in their property, it makes me sad to see trees like this. It is their tree at the very top of this page as well. They lost two. So sad.	Rockhill Rd Yet another downed tree. About five houses away.
Central Expressway & Park View Lane A look at the height of the water under the bridges just beneath Hwy 75 at around 9am this morning.	Towne Lake If you've seen the lake very often recently you can see it's much higher. If you look in the background you'll see trucks parked 'in water', really they're on the walking path around the lake. We also saw a small backhoe driving 'in water'.
Wilson Creek You can see how high the waters are in the creek that runs beside the walking path. This picture was taken from the small parking area just to the West of the lake.	Wilson Creek Bridge The waters are still high, but evidence is that they were even higher. Taken from the same place as the picture to the left.
Walking Bridge The bridge on the East side of Towne Lake which is surrounded by water.	Parking? The parking area that runs along the East side of Towne Lake and the West side of the baseball fields.