Storm Season

Yesterday it was pretty warm outside, so when Chad and I went to bed last night we left the windows open to let in the cooler night air. Just after 1:00 a.m., we woke to the sound of a VERY loud storm outside. It was pouring rain so Chad jumped up to shut the windows. The wind was blowing so hard we began to hear debris slamming against the house. We flipped on the T.V. to see if there was a tornado to be concerned about, and there was only a tornado watch, but the wind gusts were up to 70 mph! We contemplated just going back to sleep, but the wind was so loud it started to sound like a freight train. Even Celtic, who is never concerned about storms, sat up and took notice. Hope, who is always afraid of storms, was running all over the room in panicked little circles. Since the roof sounded like it was going to blow right off the house, we decided it would behoove us to head down to the basement.

Pretty soon after we got settled onto our respective couches with the dogs on their respective blankies we could see from the radar that the storm was almost passed. I tried falling asleep on the couch for a while longer before finally giving up and going back up to bed. There were still lots of rumbles of thunder (which I happen to love while I'm sleeping), but the crazy scary wind had died down, so I eventually fell asleep.

When I woke up at six I fed the dogs and sent them outside. I didn't have my contacts in yet, and I'd left my glasses in the basement, so I was visually impaired, to say the least. I could see that one picket had blown out on the far end of our fence and that Fresco was trying to stick his head through the hole, so I ran downstairs to grab my glasses so that I'd have a clearer view of what the dogs were doing. When I got back upstairs I was watching Hope mosey along the back fenceline when suddenly she disappeared completely! I bolted out the back door and started sprinting barefooted across the drenched grass, toward the gap in the fence where Hope had gone through. One of the posts had broken completely, and an entire section of fencing was leaning into our yard creating a v-shaped gap where the dogs could easily jump across to the neighbor's property. I got to the opening and peered through, and then instantly started to panic when I saw that the neighbor's fence had been blown down towards the front of their house as well, creating an opening where our three hound dogs could escape to the outside world. I just knew the outside world was where they were headed.

I flew back across the yard as fast as I could and ran inside to yell for Chad's help. He yelled for me to go grab the car to look for them while he ran out the back fence on foot, but just as I was grabbing my keys I heard him yell from the neighbor's yard. I went running back outside, and found him walking all three dogs back through the gap in the fence. Apparently they had never even left the neighbor's yard but were just sniffing around behind their gazebo! The huge adrenaline rush was for nothing!

As I watched the news in the morning I realized how lucky we were to only have our fence broken. By the time this storm system reached Kansas City, it spawned a couple of tornadoes with winds up to 160 miles per hour. Many homes and businesses were completely destroyed. In Lawrence, all we had were a lot of downed trees. I took a few pictures down our block on the way to work.





Mother Nature sure is impressive, isn't she?