Have you ever tried walking through 70+mph wind/rain? I have! And no, it wasn’t by choice either!
Yesterday, during rush hour in the afternoon, I decided to leave the house and mail out a package to Annika in Belgium. I was rushing to get to the post office before 5pm. I noticed that the sky in the southwest looked pretty scary and there was lighting flashes all over but I didn’t think the rain was going to be bad. In fact, I thought whatever bad weather we were going to get would be later at night.
It started raining 5 minutes after I left the house so I decided to go to the Walmart Market first instead of the post office. Not even 2 minutes had passed when it seemed like my car was engulfed in some kind of squall or something! I was barely driving 10mph w/the windshield wipers on full blast and I still couldn’t see 5 feet in front of my car! I had pulled over into a neighborhood but noticed how trees were bending sideways from the wind and branches were flying in the air. Not a good thing when you’re trapped in your car so I got back on the main street and kept driving to Walmart. I figured, the parking lot is free of trees so less likely to fall on my car.
What would have taken less than 5 minutes to get to at that point, took 10 minutes because I had to drive so slowly. The water was definitely pooling up on the streets and that was the first time I feared a flash flood! The rain and wind was incredible!
Once I got to the parking lot, I sat in my car listening to the weather report. It was then that the tornado sirens turned on. OH SHIT! The weather guy said that if you are in a car, you must get out and seek cover (especially if you are in Frayser/Raleigh/Bartlett/Cordova/Germantown). This guy that had parked next to me in a truck made a dash for the store so I decided to do the same. I tried to open my car door and it slammed back into me due to the force of the wind!!!
At that point, I was getting a little apprehensive. I’d never been in a situation like this as I was always either at home or inside work when a bad storm like this hit. I took a deep breath and pushed the car door open hard and ran towards the store.
OMFG, the wind was so incredibly strong!!! It was blowing sideways straight with so much rain that I couldn’t see my hand in front of me! My contacts were threatening to fall out of my eyes as I kept blinking to see straight for the store doors! I somehow stumbled into the entrance of the store, dripping wet and out of breath! The doors didn’t slide open and that’s when I realized the power had been out. I pulled them apart and went inside where there were a few people standing in the lobby of the store. They looked kinda shell shocked as they had also ran into the store from the storm.
A store employee quickly moved us all into the middle of the store where the rest of the customers were huddled. They made us crouch down on the ground. I started shivering because I was wet and realized that my entire frontside of my body from head to toe was wet BUT my entire backside from head to toe was dry! That was how straight the wind had been blowing the rain when I made a run for it!
Someone gave me a roll of papertowels and I tried to dry myself as we watched the storm blow throught the glass windows. I looked at my cellphone and noticed that Clarissa had called me from the Bay Area. I called her back to tell her what had happened and quickly got off the phone to call my family. The house phone kept ringing which told me that the power must have gone out there. All the phones in the house are cordless so there would be no way for them to answer the phone. I tried calling my sister’s cell and got her voicemail so I left one telling them where I was at.
20 minutes later, the storm passed over and the skies looked much calmer tho it still rained a little. The tornado sirens were still blaring and someone listening to a portable radio said we were still under a tornado warning. For those of you who don’t live in an area that experiences tornados, a tornado warning means a funnel has been spotted and could touch down. That’s worse than a tornado watch where it means conditions are ripe for a tornado.
As I drove home, there was so much debris on the streets. Lots of broken branches/leaves all over. Power was out everywhere. Sure enough, there was no power at home. My sister said the power went out minutes after I had left and before the storm had it.
As of right now, we have no power at home. I am typing this from the library on my laptop. I needed to come here to check my email, recharge my laptop battery and recharge my cell phone battery. Something is up with the Tmobile cell tower in my area because we could barely get any kind of reception from in/out of our house. We couldn’t even log onto the AT&T tower (which we can do for free since Tmobile & ATT have some kind of an agreement).
Some places have power now but a good majority don’t. From what I’m hearing, we won’t get power back between 2-5 days. FUCK! It’s fucking 91F degrees outside with the heat index at 105F degrees! Our house is ok as the sun doesn’t really fall on it during the day due to the tall trees in our backyard but it’s still bad with all that humidity!
Ugh, I hope we get our power back on tonite or tomorrow! I’m going to be in a really bitchy mood all week if we don’t!
So, anyone trying to get a hold of me for the next couple of days…whatever it is will have to wait till we get power/internet back up!
*sigh* I came back from the Bay Area to this! Fuck, next time I go back, I’ll live on the streets if I have to! LOL!
