Dorene was scheduled to finish painting the kitchen early on Saturday, but I decided I didn't like the color and had gone to Home Depot and got a darker grey. That put her behind and at dinner time she was still working so the kids and I went out to eat. We took our time and then when we left Jess said - "Look, storm!" We looked to the north and saw what you see in the top picture. (I didn't take it - someone else posted it on FB and I borrowed it). I asked Jon to check the Weather app on his phone and there were no warnings. We knew we were supposed to get storms but not until after 10:00 p.m.
Thankfully, we were only 3 minutes from home. We drove in the garage, got in the house, took off our coats, the power went out and the storm hit. It was VERY scary! I've never heard such high winds and heavy rains. What I didn't know, as I was frantically getting the closet ready to get Jess in there, was that it was hailing, as you can see from the above picture. We ended up with at least 2" of hail - in a matter of minutes. (If you see snow falling on the picture, as I see it right now, I have no idea how it got there!)
We were very blessed to not have any damage to our home. Wind sheers were very destructive just west and north of us by about a mile. Dorene's home sustained roof damage as 2 pine trees were knocked over (one 30 years old, another 50 years old!). Telephone and electrical poles were snapped in half like toothpicks. The surrounding area was considered a disaster area.
Our electricity went out about 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night and we didn't get it back until yesterday at 1:30 p.m. Thankfully, we are prepared for disasters. We have city water so we always have that. We also have extra water in the basement. Our generator kept our 2 sump pumps, the garage freezer and the house refrigerator going. Multiple battery operated candles and glow sticks gave us light. An external battery kept our phones charged and battery operated fans kept us cool as it was hot upstairs. I'm glad we got power on when we did because it was in the lower 30's last night and we got 3" of snow. It would have been a tad bit cold in the house. As it was, it registered 63 degrees in the house and since Sunday was in the 70's, I had the doors and windows open.
We had planned on meeting Chris, Eric, Sean and Ashley for lunch on Sunday then they were supposed to come back to the house for games. We still met for lunch and even though it was quite noisy with the generator running, they came and we played games for several hours. That helped pass the time.
Jess does not deal with unexpected change easily, so keeping her occupied for several days was challenging and exhausting. Being the week before her period doesn't help either. Debbie took her to her home Monday morning to charge her iPad and bring us thermos' full of hot water. That helped Jess alot.
Yesterday and today was spent cleaning up and putting the kitchen back together. Before we got the generator running, we had about 3" of water in the basement, so I hope it dries out soon so I can get down there and see what, if anything, got wet. We keep items off the floor on cement blocks and wooden pallets. Our basement has flooded numerous times since we've lived here and we learn by the past mistakes.
Thanks to Anonymous and Lois and anyone else who was concerned for my lack of blogging. I'm glad you prayed for us as we needed it. I hope we don't have anymore storms like this past one. Did I mention I don't like storms?
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