Friday night an epic storm swept through our area. Carrie and I were just laying down when the house started to shake. My first thought was "Is this what an earthquake feels like?" My second thought was "Wow, the wind is loud." Carrie and I raised the blinds and saw trees bending, shed doors swinging open, and the clouds brewing up trouble.
Immediately, we turned on the TV. Carrie ran downstairs to get the laptop. She was worried and the time it took for the TV to power up and me to change the channel was unacceptable for her nerves. She needed to be moving. By the time she ran back upstairs with the laptop, we'd both heard the same news. Severe thunderstorms. A real doozy.
My wife's first thought was Shane. She was scared for him, and scared for the house. I didn't want to wake him if it wasn't necessary. I told Carrie to take Shane's playpen on the main floor to the basement. I went to grab the aerobed from the guest bedroom. My plan was to avoid waking Shane if necessary, but have a bolt hole in the basement if we needed it. Afterwards, we grabbed flashlights, batteries, and went back upstairs to be near our boy and watch the news.
The windows shook and moved, but nothing broke and the storm passed over. We were relatively unscathed except for our shed doors blowing open and trees bending more than a tree should. Two million other people weren't as lucky.
Saturday morning was when I figured out how bad our area was hit. My father-in-law called to check in on us, and I turned around and called my parents to check in on them. The cells wouldn't connect. Their landline was down, as well. The news reported that two million homes were without power as far away as Ohio. Shane and I drove over to my parents to check in. Traffic lights were dark and there were some people doing silly things in traffic.
When Shane and I arrived at my parents, it was easy to see power was out for the neighborhood. Thankfully, it was still acceptable outside and the triple digit heatwave wasn't supposed to kick in until after noon. I immediately told my parents that they were free to stay in our new house as long as they needed. Jama's a Southerner from the Gulf coastline, but without A/C I figured the house would go beyond even her limits.
In the end, it all worked out wonderfully. Around 3 PM, my brother Patrick knocked on our door suffering from internet withdrawal. He had his computer, a sleeping bag, and a 2-liter of Mountain Dew to his name. He wanted to stay for as long as the juice wasn't flowing to my parents! Three hours later, the rest of the clan and Matt's fiance showed up.
Carrie was an awesome hostess. She did a lightning clean-up before they arrived, and cooked everyone dinner. Afterwards, she improvised some of the best muffins from scratch. I couldn't help but laugh and grin ear-to-ear as she was dancing and giddy from tasting the batter. The night ended with me putting Shane to bed while a round of Spades was played. The clan had received news that power was restored an hour earlier, and they packed back in to their cars and headed home.
It was great having a home large enough and with enough parking to accommodate my family when they were in need. I really enjoyed having them over. It sounds like it may become a monthly get-together! I certainly hope so. Next time, I hope a twin can come too. Megan spent Friday night trapped in an elevator at her apartment complex. The lights were out in her section of the city so she and her husband weren't able to make the outing. I still feel like I owe her big for offering to babysit for free so that Carrie and I could go out for our anniversary.
Anyway, that's the quick-snippet of our storm weathering. Patrick stayed over the night, and as far as I can tell most of our area was back to normal lickity-split. We were some of the fortunate few. My thoughts and prayers go out to the hundreds of thousands who were not as lucky.
