Friday, August 24, 2007

Riders on the Storm

or - in my case - drivers.

Whoosh - wild ride last nite. About 3pm, the boss came through and ordered us all out into the plant "NOW". Grabbed my glasses off my desk and went. Apparently there was a tornado warning. Sirens going off and all that.

Eventually when nothing seemed to happen, we all shoogled out into the driveway and looked up at the pitch-dark sky, decided we didn't see any funnel clouds (or funnel cakes either) and went back inside and turned on the radio. LOTS of lightning.

Shortly thereafter, Mother Nature decided to power-wash the entire metro area. Not joking - 60 mph winds in some places. Lots of trees down, and a lot of the already swollen creeks are now white-water rivers. Took me 2 hours almost to get home. Many stoplights out, and only a few of them had cops to direct traffic. The 2nd wave of the storm hit when I was about 4 miles from home, but we were able to creepy-crawly through the drenchpour and the road, while flooded, was still passable. Some others did not fare as well, having over THREE or FOUR FEET of water in the road!!

I was a lucky one, did not lose power, did not get flooded badly - the garden is a bit sad looking, but otherwise no damage.

514 days

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

...we all shoogled out into the driveway and looked up at the pitch-dark sky

What is it about the Midwest and wanting to see tornadoes?

When I was a tadpole and living in the Texas Panhandle, sirens meant "The damn thing is nearly on top of you, get to the basement...NOW!".

Then, when I moved to Minneapolis after college, I discovered that sirens seemed to mean, "Hey, let's all go outside and see if we can see the funnel."

The future Frogette could never understand why, when the sirens went off, here boyfriend disappeared.

Sewmouse said...

Bah. I can't tell you how many "tornado warnings" I've had here in the Chiburbs. Never saw a single funnel.

OTOH, I have seen ONE funnel - in Colorado, one of the tornadoes that hit Thornton back in the early 80's. Lived for years in the heart of Tornadoworld, and the only time I see one is when there is a freak tornado ina place that never gets them. Figures, huh?

Anonymous said...

The only time we hear sirens around my town is when some poor old coot has bought the farm.

Sew the weather has gone to hell everywhere. Lately there have been many news stories about major flooding in USA. Just last night there was footage about people driving home in four feet of water. Maybe it was your town.

The Future Was Yesterday said...

I sure wish we could "borrow" a couple days of your drench pours.

We're sitting atop a tinderbox down here.

BBC said...

In all of my travels through 49 states over the years the worst weather patterns I've seen have been on the east side of the country.

By that I mean draw a line south from the east border of Montana.

It was a beautiful day here, I hiked to the hot springs and shared a pool with a wonderful couple from BC.

BBC said...

Actually, I would never expect Chicago people to head for safe cover. I would actually expect them to head outside to look for a funnel.

Having been there a number of times I don't see them as the brightest fish in the pond.

But, they will only make that mistake once. :-)

Anonymous said...

Yeah.. the sox game go rained out by that mess.. that was ok though.. we beat the white sox like red-headed step babies in today's double header. 21-4 for both games.

SpanishGoth said...

Got flooded out in 1992 big time - lost everything except my cat. Never blogged about it but may do now.

Thanks for your comments though - I do appreciate them