Miscellaneous > The Lounge
tornado
dishawjp:
I've been through two of them plus a microburst, and I live in central New York State, which most people don't think of as a real tornado area.
The first one, well, it was my first. They had announcements of a tornado watch, and having had a few beers, I just thought that those things didn't happen here. The power went out and I went to bed. Did I mention I was drunk? Anyway I got up the next morning and was surprised to see the 2' diameter maple tree by my back door had kind of snapped off about 4" from the base. I knew there were big thunderstorms during the night but didn't think too much of it. I pulled out of my driveway (still with a massive hangover) and saw papers and garbage and stuff all over the road. I thought that maybe the local kids had kind of trashed the village. A bit further down the road I saw huge gaps in the hedgerows with trees missing from them. About that time I started wondering. About a mile from home, there was (emphasis on the word was) a sawmill. There was only rubble. Long story short, one person in the village had been killed, my best friend lost the roof of his house, and I slept through it.
About 7 years ago I went through my second one. My wife and daughters were vacationing in England. I was home alone working to pay for their vacation :) It was a hot evening and I was getting ready to take a shower. I held off a bit because there was a lot of lightning. I was sitting on my bed, no clothes on, when I heard the noise. Then things got bad. I tried at first to close the windows to the bedroom because so much rain was blowing in, but then the window blew out. I was kind of running down the stairs while trying to pull a pair of jeans on as the whole damned house was shaking and sounding like it would come apart at the seams. By time I made it to the cellar, it was over. No power or phone. Fun stuff. My driveway was blocked by fallen trees, and even if I had gotten out of my driveway, the road was blocked by more downed trees.
My last similar experience was in 1998 when we had what is locally known as "The Labor Day Storm." Not technically a tornado, they called it a microburst. It put a good sized tree into my bedroom and turned my wife's car into a pretzel. It blew down a large building the College I work at was building at the time, a new performing arts center and did other minor damage as well. The College was without power for 2 days. I would have been without power for longer than that if I didn't have a generator.
Yeah, I love those things... 'bout as much as I love M$ Windoze.
Jim
sporkme:
that's a hell of a time to be drunken sleeping
that's a hell of a time to be naked
that's a hell of a set of storm experiences
there was a minor tornado that passed the bext ridge east of us when i was backpacking in kentucky... no basement in a tent - we all ran down the hill into the creekbed.
creedon:
quote:Originally posted by DOSman:
I've been through two of them plus a microburst, and I live in central New York State, which most people don't think of as a real tornado area.
The first one, well, it was my first. They had announcements of a tornado watch, and having had a few beers, I just thought that those things didn't happen here. The power went out and I went to bed. Did I mention I was drunk? Anyway I got up the next morning and was surprised to see the 2' diameter maple tree by my back door had kind of snapped off about 4" from the base. I knew there were big thunderstorms during the night but didn't think too much of it. I pulled out of my driveway (still with a massive hangover) and saw papers and garbage and stuff all over the road. I thought that maybe the local kids had kind of trashed the village. A bit further down the road I saw huge gaps in the hedgerows with trees missing from them. About that time I started wondering. About a mile from home, there was (emphasis on the word was) a sawmill. There was only rubble. Long story short, one person in the village had been killed, my best friend lost the roof of his house, and I slept through it.
About 7 years ago I went through my second one. My wife and daughters were vacationing in England. I was home alone working to pay for their vacation :) It was a hot evening and I was getting ready to take a shower. I held off a bit because there was a lot of lightning. I was sitting on my bed, no clothes on, when I heard the noise. Then things got bad. I tried at first to close the windows to the bedroom because so much rain was blowing in, but then the window blew out. I was kind of running down the stairs while trying to pull a pair of jeans on as the whole damned house was shaking and sounding like it would come apart at the seams. By time I made it to the cellar, it was over. No power or phone. Fun stuff. My driveway was blocked by fallen trees, and even if I had gotten out of my driveway, the road was blocked by more downed trees.
My last similar experience was in 1998 when we had what is locally known as "The Labor Day Storm." Not technically a tornado, they called it a microburst. It put a good sized tree into my bedroom and turned my wife's car into a pretzel. It blew down a large building the College I work at was building at the time, a new performing arts center and did other minor damage as well. The College was without power for 2 days. I would have been without power for longer than that if I didn't have a generator.
Yeah, I love those things... 'bout as much as I love M$ Windoze.
Jim
--- End quote ---
I SLEPT through the Labor day storm; my wife never lets me forget it. What was real strange, we had one of those cheap-assed pavilions that you buy at discount stores for covering a picnic table, and having cookouts and the like; right next to the pavilion, a 18" pine was snapped off, but that crappy little pavilion wasn't even touched.
HPC GUY:
lucky me i live just out of tornado alley. In chicago we get large storms but most tornados occur roughly 20 miles out of range.
sporkme:
thats what we all thought
it's been since '84 that a tornado touched this (capital) county or any surrounding counties. this is the most expensive storm ever inthis state, and nearly equals the worsts in surrounding states.
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