Thursday, June 19, 2014

Tornado - Part 1

It’s all in the perspective.  Some might think that we have bad luck. I think we are damn lucky (excuse the language).

Tuesday night Mike ran in to town to pick up donated pallets (thanks T). He didn’t get home until about 9pm. After the last few days of storms and flooding (although we haven’t gotten any serious flooding at the Sanctuary), I was ready for bed. I was able to crawl in to bed just before 10:30pm. I’d been keeping an eye to the sky and the tv weather radar before I went to bed. The radar hadn’t shown anything but a green blob that was coming our way. I assumed it would be another thunderstorm but nothing out of the ordinary.  We’ve been pretty lucky to avoid the torrential downpours that farther east have gotten and caused so much flooding.

As I was lying in bed, I started hearing a lot more noise. I decided that maybe I better go down and check on things. The storm window was closed but the main window was open and I was hearing a wind whistle. I closed the main window and still heard a wind whistle. That’s when I knew it was bad out. Ok, sure we have old and bad windows but I’d never heard a wind whistle that bad before. And that’s when it hit. The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was absolutely insane. I was worried for the horses but knew better than to go out in that type of weather to check on them.

Then all hell broke loose. The winds whipped around the house and we heard more banging above our heads.  Then the screen door flew open and water started pouring in through the bottom of the main door (I’d accidently kicked the bottom kickplate thingy off awhile go). We knew we needed to get the screen door shut to stop the water from pouring in. I’d never seen that much water flow in before. Mike and I debated because we knew we would both get drenched. The screen door was plastered to the side of the house. Mike opened the door and was instantly drenched. He tried to get the screen door shut (it’s a lightweight door with no springs attached (I broke those too). But the winds were so strong he couldn’t close the door! I stepped out into the wind and water to help and got instantly soaked. It was like I’d stepped into the shower fully clothes. It took two of us to get the door closed. I was pulling and Mike was pushing. We did finally get the door closed. At least that stopped the water from pouring in but Mike was drenched all the way to the skin.

The previous, previous owners had attached window shades over the kitchen windows. Right after we got the door shut, the shade started rattling (we’d pushed them back up to get more light in the kitchen when we moved in but never bothered to take them off…I have no idea why we didn’t just take them down). The shade was rattling and banging against the house and then came crashing down. Luckily it caught and didn’t crash into the window.

Right about that time we lost power and the baby monitor started beeping. We ran upstairs to shut them off and our son woke up. All this time I’d been debating on waking him and going into the basement. But Mike didn’t seem concerned and didn’t mention anything to me.  The beeping woke the Bear up and that’s when water started pouring into the house.

The original owners added on a porch that through the years has been remodeled and turned into an addition (it’s the same “porch” that we’ve remodeled a few years back). Water was pouring in from the ceiling and from the French doors. I had no idea how long it was going to last. Mike hung on to the Bear while I grabbed anything that would soak up the water.

And not long after that, the rain and wind let up. We had no idea at the time the extent of the damage or what was going on. My mom had called to see if we were ok and to tell us that there had been a TORNDAO in the area!

About an hour later, the electric company was at the end of our driveway with two boom trucks. I wanted to go out and check the horses earlier but was worried that the bad weather was still in the area. It’s not like I want to be outside when there’s a tornado in the vicinity. So I not so patiently waited until I thought the weather had cleared enough. When the electric company left our driveway (figured they were working on powerlines near us), that I better go out, check the horses, and check the damage.

Everything looks worse in the dark. All I had was an itty bitty flashlight. I checked the horses first and they all appeared to be unscathed from the ordeal. Not a scratch on them! But the barn didn’t come out looking as good. Two pieces of tin were ripped up and are now flapping in the wind. There’s three other sheets of tin that are half way ripped up. We need to get them all secured before we have another high wind. I don’t want the tin to fly off and hurt the horses.

The windmill that I’ve been complaining about is gone. Well, the stand is still there but the actual moveable part is gone. It took out our yard light so I searched around for the yard light to get rid of any glass. I only saw the outer casing of the light. And even that, I only found half of the outer casing. I double-checked the horses and still didn’t see any scratches on them.

Then I noticed that the leanto that we built a few years ago, didn’t have a roof on it any more. That would explain why Brego was standing so close to me. I expect he was in the leanto when the tornado winds took the roof. Brego and Ivan usually stand in that leanto. In fact, all of the horses were standing on the concrete inbetween all the buildings. I’d locked them in the drylot not knowing that the weather would turn so unpredictable.

I then checked on the mares to make sure they were ok. They seemed ok and didn’t have any damage in their pen. I trudged on over to the ponies and the only damage was the gate is barely hanging on. It was barely upright before so I figured a strong gust of wind would probably take it down anyway. The wind also pushed the water tote off the pallets.

Back at the garage, the spare water tank had blown all the way to the fence line. It was empty and needed a new water plug (but still had a functional automatic waterer attached). Guess we’ll be buying a new automatic waterer. Mike had been working on the auger so that we could start digging holes. The wind was so strong that the auger had rolled until it hit grass. The cement in front of the old garage was flooded up to my ankles in water. I have no idea how much water we actually got.

I also looked at the house but couldn’t see much damage (until the next morning).  We did get power on about two hours after it went out.  I’d only made a brief assessment of the damage and headed back in. When I went out, I knew there was supposed to be more storms coming and the lightening was lighting up the sky. I didn’t really want to be outside knowing that the skies could open up and cause more severe weather. So I trudged back in. About 1:30am the power was restored and by 2am we all crashed for the night (or morning depending on how you look at it). I sent my alarm for 5:30am so that I could assess the damage in the light. I’d wanted to check the weather online before heading to bed but our internet was knocked out (and is still knocked out. I wasn’t too surprised with losing internet though).

And that’s where I’ll leave off for now. At that time, I thought we’d only dealt with straight line winds or maybe a micro burst. I hadn’t seen the weather and only knew that there’d been a tornado in the area because my mother called. I still didn’t think that what we had was caused by a tornado.

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