We had a batch of bad weather come through here yesterday. I had seen a severe thunderstorm warning earlier in the day, but didn’t think much about it. But early in the evening, as we were preparing dinner, the warning sirens started going off, so we turned on the local news to get a more detailed status. It turned out that we were under a tonado warning, and the worst patch of it was heading straight towards our area.
We gathered up the kids and sat in our hallway. Shortly after, we were hit by an intense hailstorm, and the weatherman mentioned that a tornado had been sighted on the ground five miles southeast of Holly Springs. Gee, that’s about where we are! Then Susan’s parents called — they were in their car on the way home, but a tree had fallen across the road, so they were having to re-route. I could barely hear them above the din of the hail pounding their car.
A short time later, the storm cell passed. Surprisingly, none of our vehicles seem to have been damaged by the hail. There were leaves all over everything, and one of the oak trees in the back yard lost a branch. We were pretty lucky, because there was a lot of damage in areas all around our neighborhood. Several of the ‘major’ roads (well, the main roads for our somewhat rural area) are still blocked by downed trees and power lines. If we need to go anywhere to day we’ll probably have to go a bit out of our way to avoid the blocked areas.
Mary’s school is closed, because several power poles right in front of it were knocked down. We found out last night that the tornado hit the house of Jamie’s para-pro. Well, actually, we don’t know if it was a direct hit, but he’s got trees in his house. Mary called to check on one of her school friends last night, and they were without power, but okay other than that. Susan’s parents called us earlier this morning while they were driving to their store and reported that all along Toonigh Road, it looks like people are selling firewood, because of all the downed trees that had to be cut up and moved off of the road.
So, all the kids are home from school, Susan is staying home from work, and we’re all relieved that we didn’t have any damage, and that we haven’t heard of any major injuries.
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Dougal | 
11 29th, 1999| 