Bonnie Rabbit Trails: The day after

I woke up this morning to an eerie silence broken only by the sound of chain saws. Like I normally do every morning, I went outside and was greeted by an unfamiliar landscape. The is one, giant "hole" in the sky line of our town where there just a few hours ago were trees. I see uprooted trees, trees snapped as toothpicks, trees on houses, damaged houses, debris and destruction.

Friday afternoon (July 1), around 4, we were hit by a severe thunderstorm. We get those regularly during the summers, but this one was bad. Everything went pitch black and then all hell broke loose.

Afterwards, I saw heavy metal dumpster scattered in the fields, powerlines down all over, silos went flying like kites. All the streets were blocked by down trees and powerlines. A tree had hit our front window and other debris blocked our front entrance.

(In front of our house)

My "front yard" is filled with trees, limbs and debris. We have boarded up the window in the living room where a tree hit the window. We have no power and it sounds like it will be at least two more days before they can get it restored. Another tree had landed on our cars. Just before the power went out, our local weather station (which happens to be in our town, right down the street from us) measured over 100 mph sustained winds!! No wonder our town looks like the set for a disaster movie. Except, this is reality.

(A tree a fell on our purple car. Yes, there is a purple car next to the white one)

(At the tail end of the storm. This is a shot of my neighbor's house.)

As soon as he could, my husband grabbed the chain saw and got the tree out of the window so he could board it up and keep the rain out. Then he went to our elderly neighbor's house. Her front entrance was completely blocked by a tree that had fallen between our houses. I started cleaning water and glass in the house. Our (new) couch was drenged and I found leaves under the cushions that are attached with velcro! Within a few hours, firefighters had reached our street and started clearing the trees and other debris off the streets so emergency crews could get through.

My husband and kids kept working through the evening and he even cleared the worst of my vegetable garden. It is not important at all considering the damage all over, but he knew how sad I was to see it so damaged. By the time evening fell, our backyard looked nearly..."normal". We headed back to the house when we noticed an odd debris pattern by our garage. Heavy timbers had been scattered to the left while other heavy stuff had been thrown to the right. My rhubarb was broken by a swirly pattern. Daren (my husband) looked at the garage and noticed it had been moved several inches! The winds had hit the side so hard and straight on, that it pushed it. That explains why the powerlines running from the house to the garage are no longer sagging so badly.