"Almighty Wind"

Lou Rawls once sang about living on "Dead End Street,"  where "There was nothing to blick or buffer the wind, the elements, to keep them from knocking my pad down, Jim!  I mean really socking it to me."  Of course, he was talking about Chicago, the "Windy City," which supposedly picked up that nickname from "windy" politicians more than Mother Nature. But that's not clear......

We had our own winds here this week.  Wow!  One utility CEO claimed they were "near hurricane-force winds."  I don't know why he used the term "hurricane" instead of "tornado," given that we are far, far more likely to experience tornadoes than hurricanes.  But his point was made.  I read that there were readings of 70 mph winds!  I don't know how "near" those are to anything, but they sure were strong.

The utilities said this was the largest emergency/loss of power in the state's history.  That is astounding, in two ways.  One, there was just wind and I don't mean that lightly.  That is, there was no ice or snow or rain or thunder/lightning.  It was just wind, albeit very strong wind.  Two, I guess more than a million utility customers were without power.  I don't know if that means "people" or "households" and includes "businesses."  Regardless of that, it sure is a lot of people.  Top it off with the deep freeze returning.  (My blind buddy called last night to cancel our run this AM.  Temperatures were to dip to 10 degrees or lower and he said, "It's too cold!")  Some folks have been told their power wouldn't be returned until Sunday eve, from Wed during the day.  Yeow!  That's a long time and that's pretty cold.

There are pockets of outages around us.  We had some considerable flickering of lights, etc. on Wed, all day and night long.  And I don't remember if it was during the night on Wed or Thur that we lost power, for just a bit, though.  It wasn't long, just enough to cause all of the clocks to require resetting.  We were lucky.

While running and walking, there were considerable number of twigs, branches, and limbs down on the streets and roads and bike path.  Across the street, there was a very sizable evergreen that had fallen.  Right next to our neighbors' porch, it fell across the front yard and covered the entire street.  Two days later, yellow tape still prohibited passage.  Neighbors were parking at the ends of the block.

Farther down, to the north, a very big tree went down, blocking a dirt road, completely.  No one could get through on Wed or Thur and finally I saw a removal crew cutting it up on Fri.  It was quite big, maybe three or four feet in diameter.  

And Einstein was right about "relativity."  It's all about "frames of reference."  The wind was very strong still on Thur and even Fri AM.  Compared to Wed though, it was a light breeze--but not really.  And last night, on our run, the wind had picked up considerably again.  Running on the side with no trees to "buffer" it, we were afflicted with "brain freeze."  (Yes we kept running and did our four laps--or was it five?)

Often around here we are reminded of Mother Nature's power only in photographs, videos, etc. from other parts of the country.  This time, although not of the proportions of some hurricanes, flooding/rains, wildfires, etc., we faced first-hand the effects that are out of our control.