Wednesday night and into early Thursday morning we weathered through our first really scary storm here in Texas. I know this comes with the territory as do earthquakes in California and blizzards in Utah, but this was crazy! First, we knew it was coming which is the same with Utah snow storms, but this packed a much bigger sense of urgency because there were TORNADOES and LARGE hail headed our way. It's strange to see cars driving 80 mph down your street hurrying to get home and have everything go silent...until it reaches you, and then it's very loud! During the silent time it was beautiful and neighbors were outside with me watching the sky put on the most beautiful light show I've ever seen. I felt like I was inside one of those electricity balls you see in novelty shops that produce little lightening bolts from your fingers when you touch it...it was amazing. The clouds only added to the beauty, but as the shape of the clouds changed, it wasn't so pretty anymore, it was frightening.
They say that in a tornado you want to be on the lowest level and away from windows, preferably in the middle of your house. For us, that is our downstairs guest bathroom, since the closet under our stairs (another good spot) is full of stuff I'm too lazy to put away. So, I put what I thought was important for the situation in the bathroom and we all waited in the bedroom next door. The satellite was out, so when we had power, the computer in that room was useful, we also had a good view of outside through the french doors. Jacklyn cried and blamed her fear of storms on her Grandma Price - "I can't help that I'm crying, I get it from my grandma!", Reily texted his friends non-stop, Ron sang Aerosmith, Ozzy and ACDC while watching the storm on-line knowing that his way of hitting the high notes would make Jacklyn giggle and I kept going to the window wanting to see it all. Eventually, the hail was too loud against the window for anyone to go near it and the winds and rain killed all visibility so I just waited and helped Ron distract Jacklyn. The worst had finally passed and Jacklyn was able to fall asleep, Reily fell asleep texting (literally) and Ron and I went to bed. There were two more storms that followed early in the morning, but the only one to be awakened by it was me. It was a long, eventful night!
We were lucky, only a few small dents to the house, although we haven't checked the roof yet, and broken tree limbs. There are places around town that still don't have power and their homes sustained much more damage. What's really crazy, is 24 hours later our kids had friends over swimming in the pool! Reily and his friend actually ate their dinner outside. I guess it's just the "crazy Texas weather" I've been told about.
I was too frazzled to take my own pictures so luckily I found good ones on-line. Knowing the outcome, I can now safely say that I wish you all were here to see it, because even these pictures don't do the sights of that night justice!
