so last night around 3:15 i woke up because the blinds in my bedroom were blowing like crazy. i got up to close the window and to look outside where i could see almost nothing because the rain and wind were both so intense. being a good little okie, i knew it was time to go turn on my tv and check out the forecast, just like ol' jim giles/gary england taught me to do. at this point, i wasn't panicked. all i needed to do was look at a map to see where the red was. so, i stumbled out to the living room and tried to turn on the tv. the important word there, is TRIED. no electricity? affirmative.
about that same time the rain started pelting my windows so hard it sounded like rocks were pounding on the glass. lucy, being the smarty pants she is, went and grabbed her leash and brought it to me, all excited that i was up and that maybe just maybe i was going to take her on a random walk in the middle of the night. i would have laughed at her, but that's when i started hearing the sirens going off. they were so faint, that at first i was more disgusted with the city of "b" because there was no way people were going to hear those if they were sleeping. (i've since learned that they were the sirens from next town over.) anyway. THAT is when the panic set in and i put on jeans and shoes, grabbed lucy, the flashlight, my cell, all of the pillows from the guest room and my room, and all of the blankets on my bed and the guest bed and headed to my closet to wait things out. i live on the second floor, which FREAKS ME OUT during storms, especially since last spring when another tornado went RIGHT OVER MY ROOF. i've always been nervous about big storms, but over the last few years that nervousness has turned into plain fear. so . . . lucy and i stayed huddled in my closet until about 4 when i couldn't hear the rain anymore.
after that i tried to sleep, but i kept waking up. my alarm went off at 545 and i checked to see if the power was back on. it wasn't, so i figured, why get up now? i'm not going to be able to do my hair or anything, so i reset my alarm for 630 and finally went to sleep. right before the next alarm was suppose to go off, my cell phone rang. yep. "snow day." :) according to the call, my school had damage from the storm and wasn't going to be opening. she didn't know whether or not it was the whole district. sooooooo, i got up to try the tv again. still no power. (this being cut off from the rest of the world REALLY sucks. i need to get a radio with batteries for the future.) i called my parents and my mom proceeded to read me internet news for dfw for the next 30 minutes.
my power finally came on about 945ish. WHEE! i decided to go drive around to see if there really was damage up at school and if they needed help cleaning. luckily, it looks like my school is okay, but getting there was pretty crazy. below are the pictures . . .
this is the building behind mine at my apartment complex. lucy and i discovered this this morning when i took her out. i couldn't figure out what it was that had been ripped off of the building . . .
. . . until i saw this when i was on the other side a little bit later on. that is a CHIMNEY!!!
look how blue the sky is now! it's a perfect texas april afternoon.
i was driving my normal route to work, but it was closed off because of the power lines that had fallen. while i was out running around, i ran into melissa's hubby, kelley. he works for at&t. he told me that all he was doing today was driving around and going to their locations (i'm guessing he meant boxes and stuff) that were without power and running them off of his generator. in my area alone he said there 1000 locations without power.
this is the street i turn on to get into the neighborhood where my school is. you can't really tell from the picture, but this tree is covering the entire yard and has landed on the roof of the house. all of the street signs were down over in this area, too. (this is where the sirens were going off.)
this is the house that my classroom window looks out on. the house next door to it had even worse damage, but they were outside cleaning, so i thought it would be tacky to take a picture.
all of this was just from winds!!! craziness!!! the neighborhoods and apartments around my school are in pretty bad shape, which makes me wonder about my kiddos. i didn't see any of them wandering around outside to check on, though. i have a feeling most of that area is still without power, though, because all of the stores and restaurants along the main road were closed up and police were out all around making sure there were no problems. it's a pretty weird day, to be quite honest. i know that it could have been much, much worse and am so thankful it wasn't. but i have to admit that the constant police, ambulance, and fire engine sirens that are going off makes all of this pretty unnerving.
from what it looks like, a lot of you - dear amigos and familia - are going to be dealing with weather today and tomorrow. i'll be thinking of you as i sit here and twiddle my thumbs . . .
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