The Great blow and other stories.

As you no doubt (if you're in the area; downgrade to "as you may have heard" for out-of-towners) heard, we had quite the blow about 2 AM yesterday.  70 MPH winds, lightning, a tornado warning.  We lost power and didn't get it back till noon.  But, we had no real other damage (other than the neighbor's motorcycle falling over).  When I went to my last day of work before vacation (did I forget to mention?  Off till Monday), I found the power was back on about 50 feet up the street and remained on for the most part until I got to Coliseum and Sherman (AKA Main Drag and Little street, some two thirds the way to work), then it went dark.  Through the turn at Goshen Road (AKA crazy busy intersection in daytime, near the truck stop), into the industrial park, right up to where I turn to pull in at my job- where our building and Isaac Tire next door were fully functional.  Go figure.

So I noticed along the way home that a nearby stretch on Clinton street  was a bit torn up.  So Scrappy and I set out this morning to document the damage.  The adjoining addition had no real damage...

Well, except for the very last house as we got to Washington Ctr.  Then the turn south on Clinton and you began to see the results...

But then I saw proof that there was, at least, one tornado involved...

...as well as the somewhat-straight line winds that made the trees in our back yard look like a GIF of giant tumbleweeds...

This is 3/4ths to a mile as the crow flies from our hallowed halls.


So then we cut across the medical park, and we got to see the bunny that hangs out there.  Don't blink...

...red circle is his cotton tail as he took off.  Then we passed a shop which was disgorging a huge cleaning crew.  One nice lady asked if Scrappy could have a treat.  I said sure, but Scrappy's not big on eating outside.  He took it, looked to be chewing... and then dropped it.  So I put it in my pocket, and we started to go.  But then Scrappy wanted it back, so I had to take it back out and give it to him, and he sat there and ate it- literally the first time in 8 years I've seen him eat anything he was actually supposed to outside.

Then it was into the woods.  Now I have some damage pics from last night...

The whole trail was like this...

...except when it was like this.  And we saw some more stuff today....

...including a gaggle of runners every 20 steps or so.  Scrappy's response to runners is, "Let me go right in front of you so you can see me better", and he almost took out one girl.  I was tempted to say, "She's too skinny, throw her back," but might not have been appropriate.


Anyway, here's a few more from last night:

'Skrats in the south end of the canal.  We also saw a huge owl get chased by three little bitty birds, but the camera wasn't on.