Wet & Wild

It's a cool, rainy morning here in southwestern Pennsylvania, but all is calm and that is good. Calm was not the way I'd describe last night.

The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch yesterday afternoon and then a tornado watch right around supper time. It kept getting darker as the afternoon went on and the air had that still, heavy feel to it. That feel that lets you know something's coming or that at least conditions are right for something to happen.

The wind started picking up sometime after 4:00 and kept increasing. By a little after 6:00 we were seeing flashes of lightening off in the distance and hearing rumbles of thunder. 

At 6:30 the storm finally arrived with pouring rain that went sideways and came from all directions thanks to winds gusting to 60 mph or more. It only lasted 10 minutes or so, but...WOW!

When it let up everyone came out of their houses to check for damage.  We found a lot of tree branches down and one driven through the roof of our shed.

If you can see that board across the shed doors...Tim had to screw that across to keep the doors closed. The winds had somehow gotten behind the doors and blew them out with enough force to rip the lock and clasp right off the door.

Our daughter and son-in-law found the shed behind their garage had been badly bent and moved right off its foundation.

The wind also tore their gutter loose and bent it.

Everyone was on edge waiting for the second line of storms to come through, but it was nothing compared to the first, just thunder, lightening, and rain.

On the whole, we were lucky. Others had a lot of their shingles blown off. Someone our s-i-l works with had his entire porch roof ripped off. Trees and branches are down everywhere. Power is still out in some areas...ours never even flickered.

God is good!