On what would have been his 83rd birthday, we remember Leonard Nimoy with utmost love, admiration and immense respect as well as our thanks for his sharing of his gift with us. LLAP.
I wanted to go into a little more detail about last night's weather. The forecast called for possible thunderstorms late afternoon into the night but the forecasters were all saying the same thing: that the main threat would be high winds and hail and that the chance of any tornado forming was slim to none. Obviously, they got that part of it wrong. Otter was supposed to work from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 but her shift got changed and she wound up working noon to 5:00. It was a cloudy and cool day until mid-afternoon, when the sun came out. Which was actually not a good thing, because warm could make any storms intensify. When I left work at 3:30, it was clouding up quite a bit. Otter actually got off work a little after 4:00, she was getting what could have been a migraine so her boss let her go a little early. So she was home well before the bad stuff started, but Roomie was still at work.
I'm not sure what time it actually was, but I think it was before 5:00 p.m. or somewhere around it because I got home around 4:00 and we ate dinner as soon as I got home. I was working in my craft room and Bill was watching a movie in the living room. I heard thunder when I got home and it was cloudy but nothing else at that point. I had the radio on when I was crafting and the reports suddenly changed from watching the weather for "later possibilities" to "indications are a tornado is forming west of Tulsa" and they started the serious discussion. I told Bill and he turned off the movie, we switched the tv to the local stations and it was a little scary. It always is scary when the warnings include areas that are very close to us! I was texting with Otter and she had her tv on. She was still dealing with her headache but it wasn't as bad as they can get. Roomie had not made it home yet, but was on her way. When the reports changed, we told her to get ready to head to the basement - her apartment complex is one of the few in this area that actually has basements, the basement serves two purposes: the laundry rooms and storm shelters. She got dressed, got her shoes on, grabbed her purse and cell phone and shortly after that we heard the sirens. She went down to the shelter and said that most other residents did as well, except for a few (males) she described as "redneck idiots" who were standing outside in hopes of actually seeing a tornado!
The sirens sound for a couple of minutes and then they shut off. A lot of people think that means "all clear" but it doesn't. Otter thought it did, Roomie was there by that time and they went back upstairs to their apartment. We told them to go back downstairs, and the did. The tornado track was originally going to go north/northeast of us/Otter but the storm itself was on a track to go right over the area Otter lives in. The tornado destroyed a trailer park in Sand Springs, which is on the west side of Tulsa (and not where we live) and it was bad. One person died there and there were several injuries. Lots of homes have been destroyed. But the tornado dissolved before it actually got the the Tulsa area, although the storm itself went through downtown Tulsa and at one point the weather forecasters thought that it was about to re-form while it was still over Tulsa. The storm shifted more south and went right through Tulsa and it was pretty big so most parts of Tulsa were affected by rain, hail and strong wind. That storm went on east of Tulsa. I don't know if the size of the tornado has been determined yet, but even a small one can do damage.
There was a children's gymnastics studio somewhere in the Sand Springs area, classes were ongoing and it was full of children. The tornado struck it as well, it took the roof off and destroyed the building. But they'd had enough warning and the owner was able to get all the children and parents into the basement. No lives lost and no injuries there, thankfully. It was one of the first places that the first responders were able to get to, each child was carried out individually by firemen and anybody that was able to - they were barefoot and one of the main dangers after a tornado is broken glass and debris on the ground. All safe and accounted for there.
Otter and Roomie eventually were able to go back up to their apartment, and Otter texted me about 8:30 that she was going to take a nighttime allergy pill to help her sleep since her head still hurt although it was a little better.
There were a couple more storms following the first ones, I took these pictures before it got dark last night. They are all taken from my back deck and descriptions are below the pictures:
Looking south from my deck, the clouds were very low.
I turned around and took this picture to the east, that's our chimney visible.
Over the roof of the house.
To the west. Visible is what's left of the woodpile and that is the dining room window.
Back to the east again, that's the shed that is full to the brim with pachinko machines. What looks like a window on the side is actually a mirror that Bill put there a few years ago.
These clouds were the edge of the storm that had gone through Tulsa and was heading east rapidly.
The next storm system came through from the south/southwest and we got a lot of rain out of it. Possibly some hail, we couldn't tell for sure but it might have hailed. The rain barrels have both overflowed again, the rain gutters couldn't handle the amount of water coming down and it was very windy. Also very noisy, there was a lot of thunder and some of the lightning was beautiful. It rained pretty much all night and it was still barely sprinkly this morning. Bill checked the trees and we didn't lose any limbs this time. I'm surprised at that actually. No sign of hail damage on the cars so if we did get any hail, it wasn't much. It was pretty bad in some spots. Some people are still without power and it might not be restored until Saturday.
This is pretty early in Tornado Season. I sincerely hope that it is not an indicator of the rest of the Season. It was bad. But it could have been so much worse.
One thing we discovered: the girls (Otter and Roomie) don't have a radio. We're going to buy them a battery operated radio. I've seen some that are electric with a battery option, that is probably what we'll get them along with extra batteries. Nobody in the basement with them had a radio or any way of known when it was safe again. If they have to go through this again, they'll take it with them to the basement.
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