Derecho: a widespread and long-lived straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms. They travel in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to an outflow boundary (gust front), except that the wind is sustained and generally increases in strength behind the front. A warm weather phenomenon, derechos occur mostly in summer, especially June and July in the Northern Hemisphere. They can occur at any time of the year and occur as frequently at night as in the daylight hours.
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Okay, enough nerd time. So, basically freak winds of 70+ mph ripped crap up. It was kinda scary. No, it was quite frightening actually. I think the thing that made it the scariest was the fact that I was driving in the middle of it. That was my choice, so I blame no one. No complaints. But, it was still scary.
The lights started flickering when I got out of the shower at home, so I quickly got dressed and booked for my friend's house who still had power at that point. I figured if the power went off, at least we'd be together in the creepy-creepy dark.
As soon as I started driving, I had doubts as to whether it was an actual good idea, or if my panic was just ignited. Less than a block from my friend's street, my suspicions of just how dangerous the weather was getting was confirmed as an entire tree fell on the two vehicles in front of me.
If you had trouble understanding that because of the crazy italics, let me clarify:
I was driving behind an SUV and a pick-up truck.
They were side-by-side.
A fully-mature tree snapped and fell.
On the vehicles.
While we were driving.
It was one of the scariest things that I have seen.
Mostly because, well.... who expects that you will be driving down the street and a tree may fall on you?
Probably me and those two people, now.
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Power ended up being knocked in millions of homes in Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia due to Derecho 2012. Originally, AEP estimated that we would get power back on the 7th. So, a few of us that were already planning a trip up to swim in the mountains decided to band together. We went on our trip after finding a few stores that were open (whether or not they had power was an entirely different question).
The blog to follow is the entirely true story of what happens when a group of half sane-half crazy women are forced into community....
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Stay tuned. But, in the meantime, here's a sneak preview of some of what is to come
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Can't wait to see your perspective on the last few days. Love that I got to experience this with our little group
ReplyDeleteLooking back on the past few days, I'm actually happy about our forced community-living. It was a great way to get to know everyone better :)
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