Wednesday July 19, 2006

 

From Peace to Violent Storm

 

 

Yesterday was a quiet, hot day in our part of the world. 

 

 During lunch break from the office, I took time to watch our Amish neighbor, Eli, and his daughter bale hay across the road.

 

 

However, by suppertime the weather changed dramatically.

 

Wind, rain, and hail pelted our woodlot

 

As we watched the strong winds, we were most nervous about the partial tree that is still standing from the last storm – when the huge branch damaged our house roof.  (The “tree surgeon” hasn’t had time to cut it down.)

 

That tree survived, but several others next to it didn’t.

 

 

 

Thankfully no fallen trees hit any houses…

 

…but the pavilion was damaged slightly when a large tree was uprooted.

 

 

Our neighborhood was out of electric until 6 AM this morning.

~ ~ ~

Even before the storm quieted, police and fire vehicles were zipping by our house, so we figured our woodlot was not the most heavily damaged.

We understand that most problems were caused by trees on wires and across roads.  We haven’t heard of any house damage.

 

 

It was interesting to walk around our neighborhood just before sunset and hear the sound of chain saws and generators. 

We are surrounded by two hog barns, a chicken house, four dairy barns, and a Peking duck barn – all within one mile of our house – each needing to operate by generator last night.  We could also hear the much louder sound of two personal generators of next door neighbors.  Cerwin decided to wait until morning to start ours, then just as he was ready to get it out of the shed – to make coffee and start our refrigerators and freezer – the electric came on!