Where I've Been

Sorry for being gone so long. I had wanted to to do a couple of posts this weekend, but Mother Nature just didn't have that in mind. Let me explain what happened. On Friday night into Saturday morning we got hit with a very bad storm. No warning, just waking up and 1:30 in the morning hearing wind tearing at the house from all directions. Little did we know, but this was no ordinary storm. We got hit with what is called a Derecho. I have never heard that term before, so I'll explain it a little. Derechos are extremely fast moving, dangerous storms. They consist of downburst which are 4-6 miles. There are downburst clusters which can take up 50-60 miles. Inside downbursts, there are microbursts which are about 2.5 miles. Inside these microbursts there are burst swaths. These burth swaths range from 50-150 yards, and mimic the effects of a tornado. FUN. My county got hit the hardest in our state, and my town got hit the hardest in my county. Trees down, lines down. No electricity. We lost our electricity for 5 days, but it was actually nice not having power. We had a generator to keep our food, but apart from that, it was nice and quiet. I spent Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at my grandparents picking up all the trees that had fallen. Sorry for no posts, but there will be more very soon.

This is what a derecho looks like. I don't know about you, but I saw this coming at me I'd be scared. I think it looks very The Wizard of Oz.

We had some trouble getting around, but for the most part it was fine.

Again one of the trees that made us go around Robin Hood's barn.

Poor fence, at least it is in segments so it can be fixed.

And this is why we are the only street in my neighborhood that got power on Wednesday. We are on a different grid from the other streets, so we didn't have to deal with this.

This tree was about a 150 feet tall and just blown over. They say that there were only wind gusts of 70 mph, but I don't believe that.

 Well, this storm was different to say the least. There was blue, green, and purple lightning along with the winds. They would hit one side of the house and then the other. My uncle lives in Flordia and in West Virginia. He was in V.A. when the storm hit him,  and he says that he has never heard anything like this before, and he has had hurricanes sit on top of his house. They tracked this storm, but didn't give a warning. Thanks. The storm started in Ohio, and they thought it was going to go South. Then it went north and they thought the Appalachians would stop it. Bad guess, after it hit the Appalachians, it got bigger. Then it continued up hit us and eventually stopped over the Atlantic Ocean. I do thank all of the electric workers who got out and worked their buts off all day and night in the heat.

I'll have more posts soon, I promise.

xx Mandy