storm!

LAst Night the twin cities experienced a series of major storms. The first one that ripped through brought down power lines, houses, trees and of electricty. This was right after dinner. I stuck me head outside and Mike and I both called a "Tornado warning" on the kids
Right before the alarms started going off. Then the power blinked several times and about 4 minutes after being in the basment the power went out. So I causouly went upstairs to grab our battery powered radio and light.

A little later we heard a crash in our kitchen. Our kitchen screen had blown in. And every open window to the north or west was letting in lots of rain water. Before the second line of storms we closed some windows. And before the third line of storms went we were upstairs in bed. With the kids crawling in and out of our bed all night. We had the radio on until about 2 am (the last storm cleared out) and then woke up at 5:30 when the power came back on and went around turing off lights and securing things. Galen's school was canceled- just about everything north of country road D was canceled.

So last night we got to listen to lots of people call into the radio with reports of what they were seeing- real funnel clouds were reported - and even we saw circulation in the clouds. Then I got to change diapers in the dark (on Ian) and try to get everyone to bed in the dark. There was lots of amazing lightening and the clous movements were unlike anything I had witnessed before. It seems that there was straightline winds hitting north of us and micoburst and small tornados actually touching down here adn there.

Damage: one good nights sleep, one clean kitchen (we didn't even have time to clear the table after dinner before the storm hit), branches down and one landed on my garden- but it looks like the plants will survive- I already went out and straightened them up. We also had spome water leaking through the window in the basment well- luckily this was right over a drain in the basment floor.

Across the steet our neighbors lost one of thier weeping willows. Lots of branches down but it looks like our block excaped the trials that others all around us got.