We had a terrible storm Monday night. It was so hot and humid all day long. Our house does not have air conditioning so we were trying to get some breeze into the house. The kitchen window was open as was some of our upstairs windows. I had been to Grand Forks to get my oil changed in the car. I ran into some bad weather (heavy rain and lightening) just outside of Reynolds, ND. That was short lived and I could see off to the north lots of black clouds and lightening. I got home and started to make dinner since it was almost 7 pizza was on the plan. David just got home as well and we were discussing our day as the power flickered on and off. The scary part started when the all of sudden the wind that had been blowing just died and the birds were quiet. We went and looked out at the clouds. The clouds were all going the same direction. That was the good news. So we thought we just might make it through the storm without getting anything bad. We were wrong.
We were eating our pizza finally. Then I heard David say "Here it comes!" and went running upstairs to close windows. I got up to see what he meant and looked out to see branches flying from somewhere and a wall of rain and wind coming into the yard. I started to hear trees falling and wind roaring. I yelled for the boys to head into the basement. I ran down the stairs to the basement trying to decide where we would be safest. Once the boys were in the basement with me, I decided we were fine anywhere in the basement. I hear David upstairs trying to close the kitchen window with some trouble. Everything in the dish strainer and on the frig was all over the kitchen. Finally David joined us in the basement for a bit and then we couldn't find Gizmo. The back door had flown open too. We feared he had headed outside into the storm. Once things started to quiet down, David checked for Gizmo and still couldn't find him. We gradually started to venture upstairs as the storm seemed to abate. I did find Gizmo between the recliner and the wall. He likes to hide there sometimes. He had his collar looped over the recliner's footrest lever. I had to take his collar off to let him move. He didn't come out for about an hour after we assured him it was all right. We could hardly see out for the moisture on the windows. We could see the trees in the backyard that were down as well as all the branches that were strewn across the yard. David checked up in the attic to see if we had a roof left and found our cover to the top of the roof gone. He checked on the top to see what else was gone and noticed our chimney had fallen over. We got some information on the weather and heard we might have some more rain to come. We started looking for some materials to make a cover for the roof. Luckily we had a piece of wood that would work and some other things that would work to secure it but no rope or cord to do that. We knew things were in the Quonset but that was a walk and littered with branches and it was dark by now. David and I braved it; As we ventured out to the Quonset, we did notice that our power lines were down and dead so we knew it might be awhile before we had power back. We got a ratchet strap that would work to secure it. After we got the hatch cover in place and started to think about what else we might need. David and Jacob went back out to the camper and got more flashlights. They also went on a tour of the yard and discovered that our grain bin was gone. At that point, we glad that the house was secure and we were all okay.
All in all it came it the best it could have and all our neighbors are safe just lots of trees down.
Go HUG a tree!
