Raging Storm

It just seems like we’ve been left out the loop with the whole rest of the world since Sunday night. We’ve been without power since then. Much of western Washington state got hit with a massive storm with winds gusting to 81 mph, taking down trees, power lines, blowing off roofs, etc. I received very little sleep Sunday night listening to the howling wind blowing everything from pieces of fence, tree limbs, roofing materails against our house and shaking it. I was afraid that it was going to take out one of our south facing windows or blow something into our house any moment. I was also worried about the hubby responding to 911 calls from people having run ins with the weather. He came home briefly before 6 AM Monday and told me that they lost a patient during a transport to a hospital. And it was taking 2-3 hours longer getting there because of trees across the roads. They were cutting their way out and back to their destinations. It was just insane.

It seemed like it took forever for daylight to break. When it finally did, it was still blowing hard and raining, but just from looking out the windows I can see quite a bit of damage; mostly trees down, partially of neighbors roofing missing, a fir tree laying over a house down the road from us. The local radio stations were down until about noon. We eventually ventured out a bit and the devastation was unreal; power poles snapped in half as if they were toothpicks making all but one of the roads out of town accessible. We stayed home most of the time, made use of the fireplace for cooking, heat, and we shared a generator with the grandparents by taking turns to keep the freezers/frig from thawing out.

Between all the family and friends, we've been taking turns hosting potlucks, giving water, helping fix a wells, clearing away the driveways full of trees, or inviting everyone over for a dinner & “shower” because you’ve received power back before them, it’s an awesome feeling.

Anyways the kid especially had a great time. She set up her tent right in the living room with a sleeping bag and her little canvas camping chair. We had so much fun with flashlights, packing out all board games, playing cards, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs in the fireplace. She never made one mention of watching one of her Disney movies until of course the power came back on! Funny how that is.

We received power back at 7:25 Tuesday evening and taking a warm shower was the first thing I did. Hopefully the rest of the folks that live quite a ways out of town will get their power back soon as well. And I’ve miss two days of work so far. I’m planning on going to today(Wednesday). It’s amazing how the weather changes so rapidly over the course of a weekend. Saturday, it was calm and snowing. By Sunday morning it was raining with increasing winds. And now the water levels are rising, flood warnings in effect in our surrounding areas. Hopefully, this will turn around for the better.

I apologize if this hardly makes any sense because I'm exhausted and I just sat down, started typing away.