OT - You think your Monday was bad? Tornado?

[LiveMusic]

I don't know if it was a tornado or not but it darn sure got my attention. Tree fell on house. Two trees down in this yard and neighbors left and also across lost two each. All have house damage. I was in bed after midnight, reading my music theory book, of course. And I heard it roar and I opened the curtains, a bit timidly since it was such heavy lightning. The trees were swirling something fierce and I said to myself, "It's a tornado and it's RIGHT THERE." Before I could back up, the tree came at me. Man, I thought it was lights out, as we've discussed. Full grown pine tree about 60 feet tall. It hit within five feet of me on the roof. VERY loud. Knocked four holes in the roof. Rained in my bedroom for hours. Lost power all night. Hundreds, maybe thousands of trees are down. Roofs off, stuff like that. I don't understand all these tornado events. I honestly cannot remember a single tornado during my entire childhood here. In the past five years, man, it's been every year. Couple of years ago, a real bad one. I think it was F5. F4 for sure. Killed seven. I finally got up this afternoon with power saw and got it all off the roof. It's a mess in the yard. Those two and two more leaning gotta go. I don't know if it was a tornado but it was sure close. It snapped a two foot pine tree in half like a matchstick. I was told just after it hit by my cousin that there was a tornado warning out just before it hit but I don't know. Weathermen are now trying to figure out if it was straight line winds or tornado. I am a weather freak; I _love_ storms. But after the bad boy hit a couple of years ago and I saw what it did, I admit, I'm not quite as bold as I used to be. Obviously, coulda been worse. Yep, it could have. A lady was driving down the friggin' highway with her mother as passenger. Two rival gang members across the street exchange words. One pulls a pistol and fires. Hit the lady right in the head. She will likely die. Just driving down the damn street. Take care. You never know.

[rold]

Damn, Duke - sorry to hear about the damage and the close call.. :( Hope you manage to get that roof fixed quickly; by the sounds of it it shouldn't be tooo much of a problem, but it could've easily been worse.. >>I don't understand all these tornado events. I honestly cannot remember a single tornado during my entire childhood here. In the past five years, man, it's been every year. Couple of years ago, a real bad one. I think it was F5. F4 for sure. Killed seven.<< Gotta love the way global warming is changing everything..Up north here we've been experiencing strange weather coast to coast. A relatively calm area would get hit with a massive icestorm, Innuits in the far north have been reporting thunderstorms where there have never, in the history of the Innuit peoples' existence, been; farmers are reporting increasing droughts; polar bears are thinning in numbers because ice shelves are melting; etc. Maybe that Kyoto thing isn't such a bad idea after all.. ;) Anyway, good to hear that tree didn't fall right on top of you! If I were anywhere near you, I'd help you fix that roof, but I think I'm quite a way's away from Loosy'anna :D

[Franknputer]

Glad you're safe, dude. I know those La. storms can be some bad mofos (I'm from N.O. originally).

[Tedster]

Glad you're okay Duke. Some pretty heavy weather down thataway the last couple of days...in the greater Arklahomatex area. Hopefully your homeowner's insurance will take care of the damage. They'll be doing aerial damage surveys, as you said, to find out if the damage patterns were tornadic or straight line. Folks in Waco, TX, in the mid 50s were fairly convinced that they lived in a Tornado free area, as on record, the area had never been hit. And then one day, I believe it was in 1955 (but I could be wrong about the year) the sky turned into a rotating black wall and wiped out half the town. Just saying that there had never been one there before had nothing to do with the probability that one could come crashing in. We are getting to the height of severe weather season, as the atmosphere tries to achieve some equilibrium between the cold winter and the hot summer ahead. Upper level winds (a major driving force in severe weather) are still strong...(they'll taper off in the summer). So make sure you guys have a good plan. Ger yourselves a NOAA weather radio from Rat Shack. Make sure you have a good basement area staked out to run to if you have to. A couple of springs ago, I was working a night shift. Severe weather was in the area. I've been trained on radar signatures indicating tornadic activity, and there they were, right in front of me, on the screen, heading toward my home town. I called, woke the wife, told her to get the kids and my mom to the basement. She took another phone and called some of our close friends. This was even before the warning sirens sounded. Fortunately, the storm had dissipated before it passed slightly to the south of our town. But it did manage to destroy a car dealership about 15 miles west of us. So, the Doppler radars do work. They won't completely eliminate loss of life and property, but they should cut it down quite a bit.