Tales from the storm side (be sure to read the last post first!)

Most of these stories were heard on WGL's Pat White Show, which had a generator at the ready.

- A little boy named Jonah called and said he was at the ball diamonds at Concordia when the wind picked up the main bleachers, threw it through the fence and landed it on the pitcher's mound.

Remember the "row of dead trees" I talked about before...?

-Overturned semis choked major thouroughfares on the east side (469 and 930) and Lower Huntington (on the southwest).

- A train full of frames at the GM plant was derailed.

-A lady called from a hotel on the north side and said that part of their roof came off, and chairs from the smoking patio at the strip bar across and down the road ended up in their yard.  Leading KC and I to speculate on strippers trying to rescue the chairs and weather balloons...

A ground hog joins us in surveying damage at the woods.  Just down from there, two porta-pots were on their sides.

- The Rivergreenway from New Haven had a boardwalk that ran above the edge of the Maumee River.  A huge tree trunk split it completely.

- Eyewitness sightings of funnel clouds were sighted (allegedly) in the worst-hit area of Lake and Columbia, as well as from the Big Lots parking lot in New Haven.

- a caller from Hoagland reported having three 100-foot-tall hickory trees "Pulled up by the roots".  He said he watched "branches I couldn't have picked up flying through the air".

I forgot to show you this as the set-up for the picture last time.

-I-69 was reported snarled south of Auburn with six trees fallen into the southbound lanes.  327 at Coldwater Road was described as closed due to "tree trunks the size of cars" in the road.

-My sister said she lost siding and branches, and "had to go two houses down"  (rural area) to retrieve lawn items.  Her mother-in-law had a big branch (due to have been removed the next day) land on her wheelchair ramp into the house, as well as siding from the barn being removed.  My nephew a barn near his house "no longer existed", and my brother-in-law "was nearly blown off the road 4 times" before being told his factory was closed for lack of power.

-Of course, we heard the best story right after Jonah's.  A dude called in and said he'd come upon a construction trailer on 24 at State Line that rolled three times, crushing a car along the way.  He and whoever was with him went to see if anyone was hurt.  The car's owner, who was in the trailer when it rolled, came out unscathed but in a bit of shock.

-The list of roads with limbs, trees, poles, or wires down was pretty much a who's who of the county's most heavilly travelled roads.  Colliseum Boulevard still had no lights this AM when me and Scrappy went in search of more ice.

-Speaking of which, ice and generators became the de facto currency of the land.  WOWO's embattled Op Manager Gregg Henson and News Director Dave Wheaton went live and fielded calls from 3 PM Saturday "until the calls stop"  (AKA well after 9) directing people to the latest places where these items, as well as food and shelter, could be had.  They did a FANTASTIC job, and being newbies to the community, learned a lot about it that would have been beneficial to them months ago.

On the hidden trail...

-Mayor Tom Henry came on this afternoon and said they lost "over three hundred trees".  I've heard estimates of over a thousand.

-My sister said after it hit, she called her daughter to find out how big and how long it was going to last.  " She tuned in the weather radar and said, "My God, mom, the whole screen's red and orange!"

-Laurie tells me I&M was estimating at 6 PM there were still 66,000 people out of power.

A hell of inconvenience

Some people might say 44 hours without power in 95 degree weather is hell.  It was a helluva inconvenience, I'll grant you that.  Had to buy battery lights and fans.  And ice, which for a few hours last night was more precious than gold in Fort Wayne. Threw away two and a half trash bags of NSFS (Not Safe For Stomach) food.   Projections for all of the city to be back on were as far away as the 4th of July.

But at 11:14 AM Sunday, we got power back.  And for us, hell was over.
There are a lot of people that got it worse than us, though.  People that will have to repair houses before they get power back, that will need homes before they get AC back.  We were under God's watchful eye.

We have two big trees behind us, and the only damage to them was one branch got pinned behind our shed.  At the corner of our building, a small tree (big enough to cause significant damage) fell away from the building.  Our car was parked right next to a little tree that survived, not 20 yards from a similar-sized one that snapped at the ground.  High voltage lines came down- into the canal bed and away from all but stupid people (which I'll elcuidate on later).  My son, coming home from work 8 hours later, was right behind a car that had a huge branch fall "out of nowhere" and crush their roof (Nobody hurt, thank God) as they were going down the street.

What the hell happened?  Still not sure myself.

We had returned from a shopping trip about ten minutes before.  There was a severe thunderstorm watch out, but that's all we knew.  The light flickered once, twice.  I was on Facebook, reading a post by Laurie's nephew:  "You know it's a bad one when the lights at work flicker."

Hmm, I said, perhaps I should consult the weather site.

I pulled up a radar image that honest to God showed so many lightning strikes I couldn't tell where the storm was.  I had just reset the screen to remove the lightning when the power went out.

(Just had a severe t-storm watch issued as I'm typing this.  Doo-DOO-Doo-Doo...)

I shut off the surge protector, and then Scrappy and I naturally went outside.  Then, it hit.
90+ mile-an-hour winds.  Horizontal rain.  A half dozen pieces of pea-sized hail.  We came in and I turned on the radio.  One station was on- even the weather radio station was knocked out!  The weatherman was just telling the host via cell phone that the storm had no history of tornadic action and there were no reports of hail.  Before I could shout "Bullshit!", his phone was cut off.  2 minutes later, the show producer told the host that the weather guy had just texted her that a tornado warning had been issued.

The rest of the night, we talked to neighbors, listened to horror stories about the storm on the radio, and took pictures of the small amount of damage our neighborhood actually got.

Across the street, near the basketball court.

Down the street.

This is the one at the corner of our building.

This tree survived flipping a car last spring.  Damn wind snapped it at the base.

Here's the star attraction.  Everyone in the neighborhood was out snapping pics.

Power lines in the canal.

The tree on the right looked like a giant wrapped his hand around the top and pushed down.  It broke the only window lost in the complex.

A good deal of its top 5 feet are in bite sized chunks across the canal.

Balcony of the building with the tree on it.

These two snapped on the way to get lights and batteries.

Bunny was making his rounds while we made ours.

Remember that "top 5 feet"?

Later on, we took a walk, having to clear remains of that tree from the footbridge.  It was a ways down from the area with the downed lines, which the park taped off on our side.  Of course, a group of idiots- five adults and a like number of little ones.  I was past them on the other side, keeping one eye out and assuming they had any brains at all.  BZZZZZZT!  Within moments, an unchaperoned perhaps-five year old was heading straight down the bank.  I yelled, "YOU KNOW THERE ARE DOWN POWER LINES THERE..."
"Huh?  Where?"
(Pointing at the high tension tower they were almost underneath) "RIGHT THERE!"
Pause.  "Oh."
"THAT'S WHY THEY TAPED THE AREA OFF!"
Pause.  "Thank you!"
"YUP."

Next day, we decided to see how the woods came out.

Along the way, we watched them cutting the tree from the roof.

The other end of the downed wires were almost right across where we usually cross the canal.

Probably 70% of the soccer goals and trash cans at the Plex were... re-arrainged.  Bet they wished they hadn't spent all that time changing the bags out that morning!

Over by the retirement apartments, Ms. Deer sat for a photo session.

Scrappy used to love chasing deers.  Lately he's decided that just watching is okay, too.

Then we went in the south end of the woods.  Just before the hidden trail lay our first obstacle.

This is what we faced after climbing over the trunk.  Scrappy said, let's cut through the woods to the trail!"  I said, "Good call!"

And these are what lay astride the hidden trail...

Oh, yes, I have more pics, but I'll save them for tomorrow when I relate some of those horror stories I mentioned.

Hopefully, I'll do that... look at what's coming again!

Good morning everyone!

Power restored at 11:14 AM after 44 hours.  Details forthcoming.  Everyone is alive and well, if a little skanky-smelling.