I think we have had more tornados living in Alabama than in the 20-odd years when we lived in Texas. After the thursday morning tornados, I thought we were in the clear and would just have thunderstorms saturday. We woke up at 415am because of several loud cracks of thunder and went back to sleep, if only we knew of the things to come.....The phone rang around 615am and I had been laying there half asleep listening to the rain and thunder, but it was Liz calling to say to get in the hallway that a tornado was coming. About that time, our sirens started going off, so of course we are throwing everything into the hallway, Andy's got the TV on to see a radar and all that is showing on the local channel is junk and the counties affected were being shown as green with flash flood watch. No tornado warning. Well I'm not taking any chances, about that time, we lose power, the thunder is almost constant, the sky has been taken over by lightening, and we have no TV, no internet, no phone, to know what is going on. Andy grabbed my alarm clock and we put some batteries in it to catch the radio and found out that yes there was a tornado coming toward us. Well, as we were sitting the hallway, I happen to look over and see a flickering through the window in the dining room; now Andy says I'm paranoid, but honestly after going through the tornado in '99 that went through Fort Worth, I say I have a right. But I mention it to Andy that it looks like something was on fire and of course he says I'm paranoid, but goes to look, I then hear, "holy $%$@, Kevin's house is on fire!!" HAH! I was right!
The shed at the back of the carport had flames shooting downward about a foot wide, so I call 911, sirens still going off, Andy's throwing on jeans and shoes to go get the neighbors up. Kevin answered the door and Andy's first words were, "dude, your house is on FIRE!!" By that time the fire department showed up and the rain had put the fire out, and of course we look like we are crazy because there was no blackening of the shed or anything, but they still got the heat sensing camera out and couldn't find anything, but better safe than sorry. We still swear that there was a fire out there, we both saw it and there is a pine tree back behind his house that got hit with lightening, the bark exploded off of the tree and was all black. I was worried that it was a electrical fire because the lines run into the top of the shed then splits off to run to the house and the shed, so of course I'm imagining an internal electrical fire that spreads to the house. We had had several lightening strikes right about the time the fire started that sounded like they had hit something. So we soon got the all clear that the tornado warning, talked to my parents on the cell phone and got a radar update since the power was still out. Andy went back to bed since the rain had stopped and I crawled back in after getting off the phone, but guess what, 9am the sirens went off again!
So up we go back to the hallway, now if had been just me, I would have left everything out there, but Andy being Andy, had to put everything back after the first round. So we have to grab everything again, the radio never said anything about a tornado warning, but the post sirens were going off, come to find out, there was a tornado 6 miles southwest from us, moving toward us. So luckily, no fires this time around, got the all clear and crawled back into bed, leaving everything in the hallway this time. So we went back to sleep and actually slept until 1145 before getting up, still no power, kinda killed our saturday. We got out of the house and ran to get breakfast and hit the PX, and called the power company around 3ish asking about the power and said we should have power back by 430. Well 320ish, Andy's asleep in chair and I'm reading WEB Griffen, and we hear the click when power comes on and immediatly after a loud boom. It was bright and sunny by then so we were guessing it was a transformer that blew when they fixed our power, neighbor, who's house caught on fire, came by and asked if we knew anything and we watched the Alabama Power guy drive our circle looking at the transformers, goes back to where he was, does something with a stick and poof, we have power! Checked everything to make sure it all still worked, thankgoodness it all did. Everything was hunky-dorey until Sunday......
1030am on sunday, no, no more tornados, bright, sunny, a little windy, but the cable goes out. After an investigation of the rest of the house, the internet and phone are out also. GREAT!
1 comments:
OMG what a fiasco! Glad everyone is ok, I hope you're feeling well.
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