Terrible Storms

Yesterday we had a truly terrible storm. And we were out in it!

It was just band after band of horrible, driving rain and wind strong enough to be bending 80ft+ trees almost in half.

Why were we out in this, you might ask? Well, my daughter had a youth meeting at church, and had been looking forward to it quite a bit. We knew there were bad weather warnings to the south of us, but nothing for us, per se. The sky was cloudy when we left, but nothing more. Well, about 15 miles into our journey (of approx. 30 miles) we found out that the storms were closer than the weather guys had warned us.

It started to rain harder as we got our daughter to the church. We dropped her off and went to go to Tractor Supply to check on an item we needed from there. Well, that is when the sky fell, just about literally. It was so bad! I could barely see the road. By the time we got to Tractor Supply, the rain was blowing horizontally. The poor manager at Tractor Supply, his doors had become stuck in the open position. They had a lake in the entryway. I told my husband I was going to pull up to the doors as close as I could get the truck, and told him our son and I would wait for him to come out. We found a spot close to the store, and that's when the wind started blowing even harder. It literally lifted the back of our full-size crew cab truck off the ground by a couple of inches. My son and I were NOT happy about that! I called my husband on his cell phone and told him to come out NOW! He got back in the truck and we went to seek shelter. There really was none.

While we were driving to find shelter, we were heading down a small road when lightning struck a power line right in front of us. The explosion was spectacular! The entire road, sky and everything lit-up a brilliant blue, as sparks flew all around us. My son screamed and my husband and I were just awestruck. That is the closest either of us have ever been to a lightning strike, and I hope it remains that way for a very long time. We finally went back to the area where our church is and parked in a McDonald's parking lot until the rain slowed. We waited a very long time. It just would not let up.

It was finally time to go back and pick-up our daughter (whom we felt was much safer at the church than anywhere else she could have been), and it miraculously let-up during the time we were there. She couldn't understand what we were talking about, as they really had not been too aware of the storm, other than the rain hitting the windows pretty hard. Our drive home was rain-filled and fairly uneventful, except for passing the remains of the accidents that had happened along the highway we travel. Many had lost control, or lost their bearings, in the downpour, hitting the concrete walls. There were many places that there were literally lakes in the middle of the highway. I was never so glad to be back home.

We all said a prayer of thanksgiving for our safe return home.

Please pray that my husband has a safe journey home from work today. It is raining, although not nearly as hard as it was yesterday, but there is widespread flooding. Thanfully most of his route is elevated enough that he should not have problems, but with this much rain in such a short time, you just never know.

Blessings to all of you!

~Kathy