I really hate nights like last night. It started earlier in the evening, probably around 6:30, with the first round of potentially severe storms rolling in. Hubby was off playing darts and was supposed to bring dinner home with him as I once again didn’t manage to get to the store. When he called to let me know he was leaving, he told me that the sirens were going off in his area and it was pouring pretty bad. I told him to skip getting dinner, I would see what I could scrounge up, just get home safe. Right after I hung up, I heard that a store nearby where he was at had made everyone move to a safe location. That just set the stress and worry bells to crazy.
I am a bit of a freak when it comes to severe weather. I love to sit and watch a storm roll in, especially an electrical one, but when my house starts to really creak, the TV goes on and my eyes are glued to the weather. I have been in too many close calls over my life to not pay attention when the weather gets bad. I think I am even more aware of what the weather is doing now than I ever was before I had kids. Hubby and I have even joked that if we didn’t have kids, we would probably be one of those crazy storm chasers running around the country looking for tornadoes. It is very much a love hate relationship when it comes to storms.
Well, after Hubby got home and it was looking like the worst of the weather (a few tornado sightings) was in another part of town and wasn’t going to hit us, I was able to go off alert mode and relax. Unfortunately, we only had grilled cheese for dinner since I wouldn’t let Hubby go back out into the crap to get us anything else. The weather guys were calling for more storms to come through later in the night, but we decided to go on to bed.
I ended up getting up around midnight to shut our bedroom window since the wind had really picked up and it was sounding like it was trying to rip our window off the house (I hate my windows by the way). That made the room really stuffy, so it was hard to sleep. Then, around 1:30 we were startled out of sleep by some pretty strong wind and pummeling rain hitting the front windows. It was hitting them hard enough it made me really uncomfortable, especially since my daughter’s room is in the front of the house and her bed right by the windows. We decided to grab the laptop and the kids and head to the basement. That is always fun, you know. Going into your kids’ rooms where they are obliviously sleeping to shake them awake and drag them into the chilly basement while the wind is howling crazily outside. It makes it hard to convince them that there really isn’t anything to worry about after that.
On the way down stairs, the sounds the wind and the house were making were horrendous. It felt as though the house was going to be ripped to shreds like a piece of tissue paper. We got to the basement, whiny kids and all, and turned on the TV. I was really shocked that with as hard as the winds were blowing that there weren’t any tornado warnings anywhere near us. As we watched and listened, though, I was even more shocked at what they did say. This massive line of storms was traipsing through town and blowing at near hurricane force winds. Some winds had been clocked at around 85 miles per hour. I was floored that our house was still standing. They did say that in our area, the winds had measured in the 65 mph range, so that is probably why I get to sit here this morning and complain about how bad it was, instead of sitting in a soggy chair stunned at what was left of my house.
When we saw that the worst of the storm was passed and Mother Nature had moved on to wreak her vengeance in another area of town, we decided to get the kids back in bed. At that point, something hit the side of the house pretty hard right near where we were. We had no idea what it was and it was still storming outside so we weren’t going to go and investigate. It didn’t appear to have done any damage, so we just went to bed.
Morning came way to early today after last night. After we got up and moving around, I looked out back to see that one of the swings on the swing set had been blown around so much that it was wrapped around the top of the set. As bad of storms as we have had in the past, that has never happened. We also found out that the noise we heard of something hitting the house was one of our splash guards that had been blown into the side of the house, so nothing major. The neighbor’s trampoline was blown and pushed up against their swing set. Hubby called right after he left to tell me that a small tree in a neighboring house had blown over, another house had had all of their patio furniture blow UP a hill and across the street while another house had had their trampoline demolished by the winds. He called again when he got to work and told me that just outside his office building there were a couple of large trees, 6 inches in diameter and bigger, that had just been snapped off a few feet from the ground, just completely broken in half.
I guess if all I lost in last night’s round of temper tantrums was a few hours of sleep, then I can consider myself extremely lucky. I have yet to turn on the news to see how bad the damage was in other parts of the city. I just hope that the Goddess decided to spare them as she has me.
