April 19 storm damage

Posted in Canon A620, Life by nikita2471

Last night, a power storm plowed through Memphis. I watched the local weather report for over an hour, to track the pace of the storm till it came over my house.

At 10:46pm, a huge gust of wind blew through and the power went out. That was the onset of the storm. I was pretty worried as this storm was producing some really bad straight-lined winds. Sam was sleeping when the storm first hit but when the power went out, I called him over. He sleeps in a room with 4 glass windows and the last thing I want is for him to be in there in case the windows blow out.

It rained really hard for a good 20 minutes with the wind gusting up to 40mph+. I had our emergency candles and lamps out so just sat in the candle lit darkness and waited for the storm to blow past.

When it did, I knew that our power wasn’t going to come back on. I had plugged in our emergency phone to report the power outage as soon as it had gone out. After the storm, the phone line was dead. Apparently, the trees knocked out even the phone lines.

I fell asleep and woke up again around 2:20 as another powerful storm blew through. This one seemed even more powerful as the wind definitely did damage around the neighborhood.

Now it’s Wednesday and no power at the house. I drove down the street to take pics of the damage done to one of the utility poles my dad said got damage from the storm.

This is the pole right across the street from one of our fellow filipino neighbor’s house. I didn’t get it in the picture but one of the lines is lying on the road. Of course, no fool should touch the line!

This is worse than the large tree branch that fell on the other pole line that knocked out our power last week!

Is it me or are these thunderstorms getting more and more severe each year? I used to not have to worry about a thunderstorm, let alone it knocking out our power. Nowadays, the mere mention of a severe thunderstorm has me worried about the straight lined winds!

I’m typing this at the library on our netbook. I had to come by to charge my phone and the netbook. Just found out when I called home that our power has been restored! YESSSSSSSSSSSS!

I don’t know if we will have cable tv or internet but at least I can take a shower! Going home now!

24Feb2011

Sounds like a freight train

Posted in Life by nikita2471

Image via Wikipedia

Holy Toledo! The power is finally back on! It was about for only 2 hours. I knew we were going to get slammed by the storm that was approaching, I just didn’t think the wind would sound the way it did AND the lightening…oh god, the lightening!

Before the power went out, I was sitting at my desk by the window in the balcony. I was watching the lightening strikes happening in the north. The strikes were coming so fast and so bright!!! It’s been a while since I’ve seen lightening hitting like that in a long time!

I was thinking of going downstairs and setting up my camera on the tripod on the porch to take some long exposures of the lightening when I stopped myself as the first gust hit the trees in our front yard. It was already dark but I could see the trees swaying. What was odd was this sound,…it sounded like a freight train or the roar of a jet engine. Now the wind was strong but this sound sounded even stronger.

The power went out and I immediately grouped in the dark for my emergency flashlight I keep by my desk. I went downstairs to the mahjong room as there are a ton of windows there so I could look at the trees that line the backyard on our property. The wind was roaring so loud and bending those tall trees so much! Basically, straight lined winds were blowing but fortunately, above my house! We were low enough that the wind didn’t reach our roof! If it had, I am very sure parts of our roof would have blown off! That wind had to be blowing more than 45mph!

The storm really slammed into our area and hail started dropping but soon stopped. It rained but mostly the wind blew for about 35 minutes. After that, we sat around in the dark and eventually fell asleep for a bit. Woke up when the power came back on 2 hours later.

The news reports here show a lot of damage consisting of roofs blown off, tress that fell on houses/cars/yards and power lines fallen down. So far, no one was injured!

Now the temp has dropped! Some cold front that was!

2Feb2011

Big storm coming

Posted in Life by nikita2471

Image via Wikipedia

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of some strong ass wind blowing above our house! It was a peculiar sound…almost like the roar of a jet engine! Usually, when a big storm is blowing through, I’m downstairs and I don’t hear the wind the way it sounded yesterday.

I looked outside my bedroom window and saw small branches flying in the air. Holy shit, please don’t let them be straight line winds like Hurricane Elvis! I quickly went downstairs, turned on the tv and saw that we were getting wind gusts up to 35mph or more.

Then the power went out.

CRAP! But it came back on, then went out again and then came back on. After that, it stayed on! Thankfully, our cable/internet/phone stayed on too! I don’t know how long the wind had been blowing like that but it soon died down a bit. I was worried because I was going to a job interview and the last thing I needed was to be driving around with the wind blowing like that.

The temperature went from in the low 60s in the morning to the mid 20′s by midnight! Yes, it’s friggin’ cold! The window by my desk had condensation dripping down. Hmm, not a good sign that the window is insulated well? I thought maybe it was just this window but it’s all the windows upstairs.

We aren’t getting any of the massive snow that the Northeast is getting. I know my cousins in the Chicago area are snowed in,…heh. We got rain this morning. If it rains again this week, damn stuff will freeze. Nothing worse than ice.