On March 4, we had a huge snowstorm. Instead of the hard-packed ice we usually get because of freezing rain, the snow came down in giant flakes that we could actually pack into snowballs. It was unheard of for us down here! Here's a picture of Chris and Tristan preparing to build a snowman in our back yard.
After all the snow melted, we experienced giant temperature swings daily from balmy and 80 degrees to frigid and 30 degrees. It made for lots of frosty soccer practices and games while we huddled under blankets, scarves and hats and put 4 layers of sweaters and jackets on the boys under their jerseys!
Then, the biggest storm to ever hit Collin County happened in the wee hours of the morning on April 10, 2008. We always get major thunderstorms here during the spring and fall months, but most of the time the winds max out at around 35-40 miles an hour. There's sometimes hail, sometimes flooding, and sometimes lightning strikes that cause power outages. But not often do we have straight line winds, and it's even rare for us to have actual tornados.
All of the above and more happened that dark and tumultuous Thursday morning. We had experienced an intense set of storms just before midnight, and we went to bed pretty sure there would be a second round. Sure enough, the emergency sirens went off about 4 AM, and in the course of about 20 minutes we were hit by 80 mile an hour straight line winds, hail, horizontal rain, thunder, lightning, green skies, and buckets and buckets of water. The high pitched shrieking sound of the storm literally sounded like a train was hitting our house. Bone-chilling!
We lost power, and it wasn't restored until about 5 hours later. Some areas of the Dallas -Fort Worth Metroplex didn't regain power for 3 days. All over Plano, Allen and McKinney, it looked like a war zone. Trees, fences, shingles, gutters, window screens, power lines and even roofs were strewn in the streets. Our house was not terribly affected by the storm. Our roof remained stable, missing just a few shingles. We lost a few gutters that we'll need to replace. But our trees and bushes remained standing, and so did our fence. When I drove Ethan to school that morning after power was restored, I realized just how blessed we were. At least half of the fences in our neighborhood had been blown over. A third of the trees had been torn apart from the top. It was really sobering to think that while we all slumbered, we were touched by such a storm. It was truly humbling to realize how much worse it could have been! I drove through the neighborhood and took some pictures of the damage. These are all from our neighborhood.
Tonight, we watched another terrible storm sweep the area. This time, footage of grapefruit sized hail was shown on the news. It came down so hard and fast it broke through car windows and built up on the sides of the freeways making for slippery, snow-like conditions. We're still safe here, but it definitely makes me double check our supplies of flashlights, batteries, food storage, propane, and drinking water. It never hurts to be prepared!
2 comments:
That's crazy! That makes me nervous to move down there! I definitely need to spice up my 72 hour kit!
Whoops - didn't mean to make you nervous! Considering how mild the seasons really are and how rare the super bad weather storms are, my post is an illustration of the "extremes" of the weather here. I've lived here for 28 years and this wind incident is actually my first "tornado"!
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