The Storm of the Year

I'm usually not afraid of storms, but yesterday's storm that ripped through Mattoon (especially on the west side of town) has earned it's place on my scary storms list. It may even top the tornados right before my college graduation, or following the storms when I was 4 months pregnant with Logan (ok...maybe a tie with that one).  It came up incredibly fast. In fact, just 10 minutes before the sirens went off, Logan and I were sitting on the front porch. The sky had the storm look to it, but was nothing compared to what it would become in a matter of minutes.

It all happened so fast that it's hard to remember the details. Logan did not want me to shut off the movie he was watching, so I went into the back bedroom to check WAND (my go-to station during bad weather). The satellite signal was not coming in. No surprise. Ours gets wacky right before a storm, even before rain. Then I heard sirens.

I did what anyone does...headed to the back porch to check out the sky. Ok, maybe not anyone, just people who live where sirens do not reach. What had been fairly clear just minutes before was getting dark. And fast. And it just looked plain weird. I got back into the house and asked Logan to come with me into the bathroom. We went in and shut the door. We do have a basement, however, it requires going outside, messing with a lock, and possibly dealing with snakes. No thanks. I'll take my chances inside. I didn't grow up with a basement, so honestly this does not bother me. I grabbed my phone, iPod (for radar purposes....awesome WAND storm app), and a battery operated radio.

While we were in the bathroom the wind REALLY picked up and it was so dark looking out into the playroom. And it was loud. I shut the bathroom door. Between the rain, wind, and sirens, Matt woke up. Matt rarely wakes up during storms, and generally just wants to be left alone while sirens are blaring. He sent me a smart-ass text asking if we were getting rain.

And then the power went off. Of course I 1) forgot to grab a flashlight and 2) didn't know where said flashlight was. Total darkness in the tiny bathroom, with just the glow of electronics. Then I heard a crash. It wasn't a loud crash. I honestly thought it was my dishes in my dish drainer. Sometimes they shift, fall back into the sink, or the stupid cat gets up there. I didn't think anything of it.

A few minutes later it seemed a bit calmer so I told Logan we would go get Daddy. As I was rounding the corner going into the dining room, I noticed our big tree was laying on the ground. That was the crash that I heard. I yelled up the stairs to Matt telling him the tree had fallen (oh, and it wasn't as calm out as I thought). We went up to see him and he was checking out the radar on his fancy smancy smart phone. Reds and yellows all around. YIKES.

Logan and I went back downstairs to the bathroom to wait out the rest of the storm, and Matt joined us a bit later. Logan stayed in tornado position on my lap the whole time. He was so scared, but he didn't cry or fuss at all. The radio was still interrupting with watches and warnings and telling people in such and such areas to take cover. Once it sounded (according to the radio) that it had moved on, we left our safe place. The power was still out, our tree was down.

Soon after my parents called because they had actually heard our street being read off on the news as a place where the storm had hit. We talked to other family members as well. Matt called into work so he could deal with tree clean-up. We received a cellphone call and text saying Logan's kindergarten open house was cancelled due to no power at the school. Boo! We were really looking forward to that.

We headed to Cracker Barrell for supper. The west end of Mattoon was without power. Pretty much the library on east had power.By the time we got back home our power was back on, but I know several around town who was without power until the middle of the night.

We have a lot to be thankful for: our little family was safe. Our house was unharmed by the falling tree. The van, which is usually parked out where the tree fell, was in the garage. Our power was restored quickly. None of us were on the road. We also found someone to come and do an estimate on the tree clean up, and the price was not as horrible as we thought it would be (no....insuramce WILL NOT cover it because nothing was damaged). They even managed to get the fallen tree cleaned up today, and will come next week to remove the rest of the tree that is still standing. The "tree dude" said that this type of tree is pretty much only good for causing damage, so we are just going to get rid of it and be done.