The Windstorm

For those of you who didn't already know, I was born in Oklahoma. We moved to Montana when Dad was finished with Dental School, so I was too young to remember anything besides having a pet turtle and our house was white. I always kind of wondered what it was like to live in Tornado Alley and see those powerful storms blow through. Not that I ever wanted to experience it, just more of a curious interest seeing as I was born there. Well, I got close enough after this major windstorm that hit the neighborhood and I'm just fine not experiencing that again!

I've just never seen anything like this at all. Fences, shingles, garbage cans... gone. Bare roofs with exposed plywood... Siding completely torn off the sides of houses... And the trees... The trees were the worst. There were trees down everywhere. It looked like a disaster zone. Mom's dog got away with the fences down and we tried to look for him, but it just got too dangerous with all the debris flying around. (Don't worry, she eventually found him.)

On my way home from looking for the dog, I was just around the corner from our house when a large piece of metal gutter came flying straight for my truck! It was funny because I looked over, saw it heading straight for me, and yelled: "NO! Don't hit my truck!!!" Right then, the gutter stopped dead in the road less than a foot away from me. Yeah. Lucky.

As for our house, we weren't bad at all. Another branch on the tree (that I hate) in front of the house fell down... so I helped it the rest of the way. Yeah, I finally cut it down! :) I noticed that the pergola was blowing around a bit and I thought I should go tie it down. I went to the garage, grabbed some rope, and by the time I had opened the door it was on the ground. Just in that short time it got blown over. I think I can fix it though.

We lost power for only a few hours. Honestly, I was loving it. We had a fire going in the stove downstairs, cooked eggs and sausage for breakfast on the stove top, and we were crispy! I was kind of disappointed when it came back on. More than anything else, though, we were just thankful to have not been hit with more damage. Crazy, crazy day...