Mother Nature

Boy, Mother Nature is fickle and, at times, very powerful.  That was the case with the storm the other day and quite a storm it was.

Here, we had two strong blows, about half an hour apart, with some rain accompanied by thunder and lightning.  The rain was steady, but not particularly hard and didn't last an hour, not close to it.  The winds, both times, were strong.  We had some patio furniture on the deck knocked over, but that was about it.

The tornado/storm siren went off twice.  The first time, the storm came and went.  The skies cleared to a beautiful blue, with few clouds.  The warning siren sounded.  Too late!  The second time it went off was just before the second wave of wind and rain/thunder and lightning.

But north of here, about 15 minutes or so, look out!  I spent a few hours today helping friends to clean up their yard.  I've never seen so many green leaves fallen on the ground.  It was like the autumn, except the leaves weren't all the fall colors--just deep green.  There were no large limbs down, but lots and lots of small twigs and branches.  But more so, it was seeing the damage by the hail.  Here, we had no hail, none at all.  There, the newspapers reported "golf-ball size hail...."  That was wrong.  I saw my friends photos and the hail was closer to baseball-size.  Their cars were pock-marked with big dings and dents from the hail.  A tail-light was knocked out.  The windshields were cracked in numerous places.  The house??????  Siding was as dented as the autos.  Several glass-brick windows were shattered.  Plants were beaten to the ground.  Even those heavy-duty plastic outdoor storage bins were pounded with holes!  Those things are thick and sturdy, too!  The roof needs to be repaired; window frames were destroyed.

Driving on their street, sort of a cul de sac, I've never seen so much traffic there.  About 90% of it was construction vehicles.  My friends said, since Sun, they come home and find many flyers from restoration companies on their door--and numerous calls from those companies are on their voice mails.  Some houses, too, on their block were even worse off with damage.

We didn't do any restoration/repairs.  The insurance folks are coming out to assess the damage and give an estimate.  We just cleaned up the yard, which was work enough.

Now, a mile or two south--no hail.  A mile or two north--no hail.  There was the strong wind, like we had, and rain, but no hail.  Fickle Mother Nature.

What was the old television for Imperial Margarine?  "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."