Survived a nasty storm

On Monday a "high wind" storm was racing across north central Illinois heading for my home town - I even heard it was coming. I was in town when it hit, trees shaking wildly throwing a mass of leafs into the air, sand blasted into my open car window, as I was trying to get it up. I saw three trees fall in front of me, but a hundred trees fell, and a hundred more large branches, half trees snapped off - taking power lines down everywhere. Based on the damage it seemed that the wind was moving as a sine wave (at 70 mile gusts), at the bottom of the wave, trees got broken, but then the wind swooped up, not damaging the trees across the street, then dropped down 100 feet beyond. One witness said a vortex came from the sky (now accessed to being a brief EF-1 tornado touchdown) and took a large building supply roof completely off. The trees across the street snapped, but my house was untouched, then houses 60 feet beyond got hit by trees. Cars smashed, windows broken, but no injuries or death. The power was out for 56 hours, living like the 19th century, going to bed after dark, and getting up once the sun was up - while caregiving my 81 year old father (in has last months), and 83 year old mother. It's not been fun, but all I have to do now is buy a full set of refrigerated groceries, and plan a trip to Mitsuwa Japanese Market, to get my Mom's food supplies. It was an interesting few days, but got power back, and TV/itnternet at 5:30 this evening. I almost feel normal again.

Glad you and your folks are ok.

That's quite a powerful write-up!

Wow! As if there is not enough already happening.

I feel for you, specially caring for your elderly parents. I cared for my mother for a year, three times back and forth in hospital for long stays. Now it is my dad who is sick. I am into my 5th year now and truly exhausted, for me it feels like a storm everyday. My dad refuses to go to an elderly home. On a lighter note, how is your Xara ;)

Doing map commissions for game publishers, and have my own game publication I want to release when the freelance work is complete - all done with Xara.

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Originally Posted by Gamerprinter

On Monday a "high wind" storm was racing across north central Illinois heading for my home town - I even heard it was coming. I was in town when it hit, trees shaking wildly throwing a mass of leafs into the air, sand blasted into my open car window, as I was trying to get it up. I saw three trees fall in front of me, but a hundred trees fell, and a hundred more large branches, half trees snapped off - taking power lines down everywhere. Based on the damage it seemed that the wind was moving as a sine wave (at 70 mile gusts), at the bottom of the wave, trees got broken, but then the wind swooped up, not damaging the trees across the street, then dropped down 100 feet beyond. One witness said a vortex came from the sky (now accessed to being a brief EF-1 tornado touchdown) and took a large building supply roof completely off. The trees across the street snapped, but my house was untouched, then houses 60 feet beyond got hit by trees. Cars smashed, windows broken, but no injuries or death. The power was out for 56 hours, living like the 19th century, going to bed after dark, and getting up once the sun was up - while caregiving my 81 year old father (in has last months), and 83 year old mother. It's not been fun, but all I have to do now is buy a full set of refrigerated groceries, and plan a trip to Mitsuwa Japanese Market, to get my Mom's food supplies. It was an interesting few days, but got power back, and TV/itnternet at 5:30 this evening. I almost feel normal again.

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Glad you are OK.

So I recently learned that the phenomena that hit Iowa, and Illinois was called a derecho - a widespread high wind storm, sometimes compared to an inland hurricane. I'd never heard of such, but I experienced it.