It was a dark and stormy night. . .

We had a horrific storm come down our street back in Jun. We've actually had quite a few tornadoes and crazy thunderstorms this summer. And most of them seem to happen on Sunday nights. This night started out no differently.

Nick was at work and I had just put the kids down when there was a huge lightning strike and thunder following almost instantaneously. That jarred me a bit. Randy (my father-in-law) came in just then to use our computer. So at least I wasn't alone. The wind was really strong and it was dark. The trees were blowing so far over I was surprised they were still standing. Since we don't have TV we started looking on the internet for tornado warnings. As I was sitting on the couch something changed outside and I looked out the window and there was a WHITE-OUT. No kidding. It was crazy. I couldn't even see my driveway or his car parked in it. My first thought was, "I've got to go get the kids out of bed and lay on top of them so that when our house is blown of it's shoddy foundation we don't all end up in munchkin land!!"

When it passed/calmed down/stopped and I could see out the window this was what I saw across the street: (these pics were actually taken all the next morning - too dark that night).I'm not really sure if you can tell, but the tree on the left used to be as big as the one on the right. 2/3 of it was strewn across the lawn. Here is another shot.Neighbors started spilling out of their homes to collect trash cans and recycling bins and debris that had been blown down the street. We didn't see any funnel clouds - but with the winds as strong as they were it was something like that.

Nick was on his way home from work and was unable to get into our street because trees had fallen blocking the only street access. Luckily he was able to go around and come through the park several houses down.

Here are more branches down.
And this one, you have to see that that big mound of dirt is actually the root base of a VERY large tree. The roots are taller than the 6-7" fence!This about 1/3 of my neighbors Bradford Pear. so sad - I love that tree in the spring!
And here are the tree cleaner-uppers taking care of part of a tree that had fallen onto the neighboring house.
It was definitely the most exciting thing that has happened here on Dewey Drive. Randy emailed the local weather guy and asked if it was a tornado. His response was basically - the radar doesn't show that it was, but the winds and damage do, so if you want to tell people it was a tornado, I won't dispute it.

Someone said they thought it was a Microburst. After reading about them and seeing the trees down around our street (some facing in opposite directions) I am inclined to believe that's what it was. Either that or aliens. Scully, Mulder? are you there?