Although this first image made us laugh in remembrance of the internet picture of one toppled lawn chair and the caption "Earthquake 2011; We Will Rebuild.", the POWERFUL storm that passed through on Friday evening was no joke but was extremely damaging to trees and power lines. More than twenty folks lost their lives and millions of people were left with no electricity in 100 degree heat.
This storm was only predicted about 20 minutes before it hit with emergency announcements on TV and on smartphones that announced a Tornado Warning. Sure enough, as we were standing in different parts of the house, we all heard a very loud rushing noise that I thought was a heavy downpour of rain starting. Sam, who was standing at the kitchen sink pouring orange juice, loudly screamed "Tornado!! Get to the basement!!!! As we fled from different rooms to head down the basement stairs, the power went out plunging us into darkness. We immediately got into our large storage closet, the kids visibly upset.They remained upset, worried about family members not present. Together we said the Divine Mercy, begging God for His Merciful protection for us and for the whole world. We later heard from family members who had to drive through this storm which they said had been extremely dangerous with bending trees and flying debris.
Luckily, the power did come back on although it continued to flicker off and on for an hour. I stayed in the closet with the kids but Larry and Natalie went onto the porch to watch the storm in all of its fury. Trees were bending way down but it wasn't until the next morning that we realized that this healthy tree had snapped off about twenty five feet up. It is directly in line with the kitchen window that Sam had been looking out of when he we all heard the first gust of wind come through. That gust was reported to be rushing at 70 to 80 miles per hour and covered a swath at least 250 miles wide which is the definition of a weather event called a "Derecho"( deh- ray-cho, with a soft ch like church and long o), basically a straight line wind storm with severe lightning and above hurricane force winds.
Someone I spoke to remarked that all the downed trees that she saw looked like they had been "twisted "off. That indeed is the case here. This tree was healthy. HUNDREDS of huge trees are down all over our city and for many miles. Many of them are caught up in power lines.
Like us, almost every family was out all day on Saturday cleaning up from this violent, memorable storm. Piles of brush were lined up in front of every house downtown as most streets looked like a war zone. I saw at least 15 massive trees down on the few streets I drove through. A number of streets were impassable and closed.
Almost every yard had limbs down. Our yard is covered with sticks, leaves and large branches. By God's Grace our house wasn't hit.
Jon used the chain saw to cut up our fallen tree and trim elsewhere.
Our Internet was down for twelve hours but our power remained on. The family members who commute and live in the big city had the day off on Monday due to no power and no traffic lights. Even the National Guard was called out as not everyone has able-bodied family members to help them.
The top picture is where our fallen tree sheared off, seemingly out of nowhere. I have long been resisting the intentional removal of the very large trees, some of which are diseased, that tower directly over our house. This storm, with its devastating tree carnage visible all over the city, has changed my mind!
