The odds of any weather forecast predicting rain in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas are heavily skewed in favor of the naysayers any given time of year.
We live with 0-20% humidity daily; a far cry from the Chicago of which I was accustomed for 50 years. Down here arthritis pain, or I should say inflation due to humidity or cold, is a distant memory (thank goodness).
So one becomes the Rodney Dangerfield heckler in the crowd when the weatherman, or weather[dot]com for that matter, forecasts rain. You plow ahead and plan that birthday BBQ or soccer game anyway. You wash the car and exterior windows of the house in full anticipation that once again, the rain will evaporate before ever hitting the ground once more. Rain is seldom, welcomed and evaporates quickly. Welcome to DFW.
Yesterday was such a day as I monitored weather[dot]com’s radar map and posted to my old Chicago friends on Facebook “it looks as though we’re going to miss the rain once again but I can’t say the same for you up North. Keep your umbrellas handy”.
Me and my big mouth; or grande boca as the locals would say, shaking their head at the arrogant gringo.
Within 10 minutes, the Northwestern sky was filling with a front of blue/black clouds and you could easily see the ‘line’ in the sky as the storm pushed towards up rapidly.
Mother Nature obviously follows me on Facebook and reading my hubris, flipped me the bird but good.
Heavy rains coming down in buckets, the kind where the gutters simply throw their hands up and surrender to the onslaught, extreme wind where you can no longer see your neighbors home, small trees blowing sideways to the point you’re certain they’ll never stand erect again and surprisingly, hail (small dime size however hail is rarely seen below the 40th parallel).
Me in my glee (because I’m a Chicago dork and we secretly love to watch such horrific events unfold live - usually with a beer in hand) grabbed my cell phone to record Mother Nature’s wrath. I had done just the same in April as an unexpected tornado ripped through the area; so why not film it once again. Just as I extended my hand for the door knob, a loud THUD almost caused me to literally jump out of my flip flops.
Yep. That was my chimney enclosure.
Damn you Facebook and damn those flip flops. Next time I’ll grab hip waders.
20 minutes for 240,000 out of roughly 400,000 residents to be out of power. 20 minutes to tear down power poles (not just lines but actual poles) across major thoroughfares causing traffic come to a halt and struggle to reroute just in time for rush hour. Business signs were blown down. Stop lights; well with no power you can imagine none were working. Shingles flying everywhere as roofs we randomly torn to pieces.
20 minutes and the sun began to peak through the clouds; the storm having passed as quickly as it came. Neighbors slowly returning from work having been sent home with no power. Each re-telling their story of their 15 minute drive home that took well over an hour as highways and major roads came to a stand still. Trees not only snapped at the branch but some snapped off at the base of the trunk. The enormous Haunted House (tent) which had been erected ahead of Halloween was flung and smashed to smithereens against the building; its contents blown to the four corners.
No A/C, no Thursday night football, no microwave, no stove, no DVD player, no your DVR won’t record your favorite shows tonight, no internet nor phone signal. Cell phone batteries dying everywhere (amazingly this was the #1 complaint I heard all night. Just wait until they try to sleep with no air conditioning.
Just wait until all of their food in the refrigerator/freezer has to be thrown away.
When power poles themselves go down, electric is not restored in an hour or two. Businesses send workers home early don’t re-open for business the next day. People will be home again tomorrow. Just wait.
I guarantee the local news will say it was not a tornado. They always do unless a subdivision is flattened in the torrent. Conspiracy theory is if they didn’t see it, it didn’t happen so FEMA won’t have to intervene. Whatever. I just pray that no communities were hit harder and there’s no loss of life. While we always need rain in Dallas, a steady two hour rain would’ve been much more welcomed than a 20 minute torrent. Point taken Mother Nature. Well played.
There’s always a bright side.
- I’ve met more neighbors in the last 24 hours than I’ve met the last three years.
- My dog and I will sleep like the dead tonight after being nosey and hoofing it for a few hours to view the surrounding damage.
- Hopefully I’ve burned a few calories. I need it.
- My son has no choice but to sit in the candlelight with his Mother and actually talk without constant interruption from his cell phone.
- My furniture will get a good cleaning with Murphy’s Oil Soap because what else is there to do but read and clean after my computer battery runs low.
- I guess I’ll get a new chimney
- Cold showers aren’t very cold (more like cool-lukewarm) down in Dallas.
- The outdoors grills got a good cleaning from me.
- Subway has power and oh, look…….the sports bar right next door has power! #Winning
I will completely miss Friday’s training and I can guarantee there will be withdrawl symptoms. Being a Friday I can only hope that the bulls will pressure weak shorts to cover into the weekend which will be a confirmation of Thursdays reversal candles.
It will definitely be a long time before I open my big mouth again when it comes to the weather. Mother Nature proved to me once again, even if it’s only 20 minutes, everything is bigger in Texas.
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