Homer's Travels: Enough Already With The Freaky Weather

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Enough Already With The Freaky Weather

Last time a storm blew in so quickly everyone was left in shock. The storm only lasted 15 - 20 minutes but in that short span trees were blown over and over 120,000 people were without electricity - including us. The winds were clocked around 70 MPH with some gusts approaching 90 MPH - Hurricane force. Parts of Omaha north of us has golf ball size hail. During the storm the Wife and I stared out the window and watch the rain fall sideways. It was trash day and recycle bins were blowing down the street. Then, after everything was over, the electricity went out.

Our oven in Nebraska is electric and the homemade pizza in the oven probably had another five to ten minutes to go when the power went out. The homemade pizza dough didn't have enough time to finish baking. We were hungry for the rest of the night.

I was also disappointed with our phone system. We get the phone through our cable company. They told me that the phone set up was on an UPS and that it would work even when the power was out. WRONG!! They will hear from me since if we'd had an emergency, we wouldn't have been able to call 911 or anyone else. Not a very good situation.

As we waited for the electricity to come back on, I pulled out a battery powered radio (a fish-shaped shower radio) and we listened to the local storm coverage. They took callers and some of them were hilarious. One guy called and said that he'd heard enough about the storm, they needed to "get over it", and put on the regular Sports show. What a selfish little punk.
Another guy was an interviewer's nightmare:

Radio Guy: "Hello, your on."
Yokal: "Hello"
Radio Guy: "What did you see?"
Yokal: "Tornado"

The rest of the interview wasn't any more verbose. There weren't any tornados that night either.

A third guy called saying he was stuck in his basement. Apparently he went down there during the storm and a tree had fallen blocking his door. The problem is he sound so much like a DUUUDE that it was hard to take him seriously. My guess is that he stored his stash of marihuana in the basement and and he was calling for help because he smoked his last joint. The Radio Guy asked him if he could call his neighbors to help him get out and he said "Whoa, I hadn't thought about that. I'll give it a try." What a character.

The electricity came on at 8:05 AM this morning. There was some concern it would be off for a few days since there were over 80 circuits down and the winds brought down a lot of lines. We were lucky. Most of the trees in our area are young and resilient and most of out electrical lines are buried. My Mom found one of her trees in her backyard pond. Our only loss was our new metal flag pole bracket - snapped it right off. Note to self: bring in flag before the storm hits.

7 comments:

  1. Hail, sideways rain, people on the west coast don't know what they are missing! Nothing like midwest storms! Especially the thunder storms. We were in Utah for our oldest daughter's graduation, looking out the hotel windows, the rain was falling sideways. Of course we were blamed for bringing the storm with us, since we lived in Nebraska at that time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Weather, an excuse to buy...

    ...a gutter-cleaning robot.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Reading those guys' reactions was hilarious. I hope you stay safe. But what a way to start a new part of your life.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dobegil: They are oblivious, aren't they. Thunderstorms are the best!

    BM: I thought I was bad but you ... you are the gadget king.

    Gany: We've been safe so far. Our home seems to be well built. The weather has been crazy lately.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gee, kinda makes you miss living in earthquake/flood/fire/mudslide country, doesn't it? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. We get sideways rain on the west coast and hurricane force winds...

    I always want to go and lie on the lawn or stand in a field when there is a storm like that lashing about.

    ReplyDelete
  7. GH: No. ;-)

    JaG: OK, that sounds a little strange. I prefer being indoors during the rain, not wanting to become a lightning rod. I also prefer to stay dry.

    ReplyDelete