First .... the tornado.
Yes, a tornado.
I KNOW!!!
This is looking out off of my front door .... to the car parked out on the street. The car that got ... a-hem - .... hit by a tree. Sad.
This is a house across the street, that used to have a very, very tall tree. Now? Not so much.
Close up of the snappage (yes, I just made up that word, why?) Trees were snapping off all over the place thus .... major snappage!
The house next to the last one (and across the street from me) lost a tree right next to the previous one .... only it keeled over, root and all. A very large, very tall (over 8' in diameter root area) tree. It also fell all the way across the street up to the neighbors' house. Thankfully they both fell into the street .... and only the street.
Another view of one of them:
And the very large, very tall but very shallow, root system:
This yard belongs to my next door neighbors. They put new decking, landscaping and a koi pond in a few years ago. The tree took the deck .... and the pond ..... and the pretty fish, with it. :(
I was on a "work" phone call when the storm dropped in. Out of nowhere. Seriously. I had just walked out into a light sprinkling to pick up my newspaper 5 minutes before it hit. Robin and I were discussing volunteers for Widowed Village and Camp Widow when I suddenly stopped talking and slowly walked from my bedroom, through my heavily-windowed living room, into my very heavily-windowed kitchen/family room. It took a couple of sentences before Robin realized that I was no longer involved in the conversation. She stopped .... and then asked if I was ok. I'm not sure that I ever managed to utter one coherent sentence. I "ummed" and "wowed!" and "holy cow'ed!" quite a bit, while trying to figure out/tell her what was going on. I said that it's like we were in the middle of a small, but powerful, hurricane, or were being hit by a tornado. And I knew, without a doubt, that my windows were getting ready to shatter. The noise, like the speed of the wind, went from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds. It was so very freaky.
And scary.
Very, very scary.
I was home alone when it hit. Usually not a big deal. I grew up in Oklahoma and have never, ever been afraid of storms. My dad (who also grew up there) would head down to the garage with his radio and flashlight in hand, trying to herd the rest of us with him. I was relieved to reach teenage-hood, when I could roll my eyes at him and keep watching "General Hospital".
Nope .... never scared.
Until today.
It just came so fast and hard .... and loud!
Robin asked if she should let me go so that I could get off of the phone. I told her, "No! I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but if something happens to me then at least you'll be the person who knows!" She also got a blow-by-blow, tree-by-tree play of the storm in live action mode. Which helped keep me a bit sane .... and definitely less panic-stricken.
I was standing at the middle window, watching/trying to describe the storm when a huge branch flew in and landed right at our side door. Nice, huh?
Really surprised that the table (among other things) was still in the yard:
The tornado sheared the tops off of trees throughout the neighborhood, thus causing many tree tops to fall on elec wires = no elec for a few hours.
Side trees blown and bent almost all the way over.
A nice tree top in my pool.
Another view: lovely, doncha think?
More snappage .... and shearing.
And then, just as I was finishing up with the camera, I noticed her .... against the blue sky (less than an hour after the dark, black storm came in):
Kind of ironic .... no? :)
And beautiful, peaceful .... and hopeful.
So that was the excitement for my afternoon, day, month. Just thankful no one got hurt.
Reality.
A necessary evil.
I guess.
Sigh ....
Happy Wednesday, Peeps!
:)
