I Almost Died Before Ever Seeing Hawaii

Last night some severe thunderstorms went through the area. It had been raining all day, off and on, and it's not unusual to have thunderstorms here in Kansas City. We weren't in a tornado warning, and I hadn't watched the news or really heard anything about the weather all day. So, when I left Beth's house to go home, I wasn't expecting to come face to face with death by tornado.

When I walked out of the Anderson's, it was only slightly drizzling. Carolyn, Dany and I walked to our cars. We didn't jog. We got a little wet. I had my windshield wipers on the lowest setting as we drove away. Like I said, it had been kinda raining off and on all day. No biggie.

As we drove, the rain got heavier. Once we got to I-35 south, it had gotten worse. There was some water on the road and it eventually got to the point that I pulled over to wait out the storm because I couldn't see well enough, even with my windshield wipers on as fast as they would go. Then it started to slow and I felt comfortable driving again.

I pulled back into the road and drove a bit further, where traffic stopped. Initially, since no one was moving, I thought maybe there had been an accident ahead, in the midst of the stormy weather. But, it was just because of the weather. A few moments later, all hell broke loose.

Hail started to come down, faster than I'd ever seen. Tons and tons of hail, ranging in size from dimes to quarters. It started accumulating on the ground like snow. In inches. Probably right around four inches. Of hail. In a few minutes.

The rain and hail were coming down hard, I could hear it hitting my car and windshield, sad that I didn't make it the mile home to the garage. I apologized to my car for not leaving sooner. We had almost made it!

Then the wind picked up, blowing in all directions. Strong wind. Except the only gauge I had for measuring how strong the wind was, was my car shaking as it blew. It was dark (11:45pm), so we couldn't see tree branches blowing, and the rain was coming down so hard we couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. The lightning that flashed was really bright but brief. The rain was hitting the car and washing over the windows so much, I couldn't even see rain drops blowing in one direction or another.

It was so loud that I turned up my radio to try to gauge it. Carolyn and I were screaming over the storm and could barely hear each other. The radio cranked to all but two bars on the volume gauge, and I could just hear it. I'd never be able to stand listening to the radio that loud.

It was then that I started to think that we might be in the middle of a tornado. I was hoping it was a small tornado and wasn't going to pick up my car. I pushed my foot harder on the brake (as if that would help anything) and realized that both of my legs were shaking. Next to me, Carolyn started reciting Hail Mary's and Our Father's. Even I started to think that might be a good idea.

I screamed to her that it had to be over soon. I said it three different times before it was actually over. I looked out of the driver's side window. The left lane of the road had turned into a raging river, and I stepped on my brake some more. Hail was rushing by on my left, accumulating on my right. The windshield wipers, still moving as fast as they could, were now brushing aside shredded leaf particles and small twigs along with rain and hail. Even with the wipers moving, the windshield looked like I was going through an automatic car wash. The wind changed directions.

Out the front window, I saw a green fireball in the sky. A few seconds later, to the left of it, there was a larger green firework looking thing. I screamed, "Holy Fuck!" and hardly heard it. By this time, my heart was beating a bit faster, adrenaline was pumping. The storm lasted a bit longer. It felt like a couple minutes, but I didn't keep track of the time. I'm sure it felt much longer than it actually was, so I wouldn't want to make an estimate.

But it finally died down to just a light drizzle. The car in front of me didn't move. Eventually, I passed it on the right shoulder, driving through the four inches of hail. And I went home. 200 yards south of us, there was no leaf debris in the road. Father south, it looked like nothing happened. Traffic was stacked up in the other direction and on all the exit ramps. We probably saw 6 cop cars or fire personnel in the mile it took us to get home.

Everything at home was fine. The dogs didn't even seem freaked out. But it took me and Carolyn and Dany a good hour to calm down. We looked for information about the storm and tornadoes, but didn't find anything. I was still convinced it was a tornado. And if it wasn't, I never, ever, ever wanted to be in one.

We all agreed it was the scariest thing we'd ever experienced. In the morning, the news said there was a "wet microburst" in the area we were in. Winds reached up to 80 mph and there was lots of rain and hail. Today, we drove around to look at the effects of the storm we narrowly survived. (Yes, this may be an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like we were near death at the time!)

This map shows you where we were parked on 35 last night - at the red X. The highlighted circle is what I approximate as the area of destruction (which is likely not super accurate, though we did drive around the area), and the little black house is approximately around about where I live-ish, kinda.



This is a Sonic where we though we could grab some breakfast. It wasn't open. This used to be their sign.

And this is their parking area.


And this is a big old pile of hail. The storm hit at 11:45pm or so and this picture was taken at 10:30am. It's September. The overnight temperature was in the low 70's. How much hail had to be here??

This is Stroud's. You may have seen it recently on Man vs. Food (look around the 6:15 mark). The sign, which should be on the left, is now down, on the right.

This is the spot on I-35 that we were stopped at last night. There are several broken trees right here.

A closer look at two of the down trees.

And just a little bit behind us, This sign blew over.

And this tree.

And this sign. Which was facing the opposite direction as the that first sign I showed you.

Even this afternoon, the roads were covered in these shredded leaf bits. Trees were just torn apart last night.

And this tree was blown over right behind a Corvette. They got pretty lucky.

About 4 panels of this fence were down.

And another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust.





And a tree on a house.


It was a scary night, and scary day, actually seeing the damage that this storm caused. Power was out for a few thousand in the area, and the traffic lights were all out as well. Everything was a flashing red light with a four way stop.

But, on the bright side, if there hadn't been a storm, I would have never been driving around, and if I had never been driving around, I would never have found this precious gem, right here in Kansas City.


There's always a silver lining.

The deposit is paid for the Hawaii trip. I'm going in February. Here's hoping I don't die before then!


End Blog.

Climate Control

I was planning on mowing my lawn today. I woke up slightly before 9am, went outside and melted. Therefore, my lawn is still a jungle. Somehow my neighbor managed to mow his lawn without spontaneously combusting, so now I look like the white trash on the block, but I don't really care. It feels like it's a billion degrees outside.


I bet you didn't believe me... but that's totally from the weather channel...

Anyway, I had a great day of napping indoors while trying to recover from that melting bit of the day. I had a chocolate malt. It helped a lot.


End Blog.

Nature's Light Show

One thing that still amazes me since moving to Missouri is all the thunderstorms. We had a quick downpour last Friday night and after it stopped raining, there was constant lightning. It was pretty amazing. Here's what it looked like - there's no video editing to speed up these lightning "strikes" which are cloud to cloud, but the sound has been taken out, just because it was idle chatter between me and one of my friends.

That's just so cool. You never saw anything quite like that growing up on the East Coast. I really do love the weather here, even when there's threat of tornadoes. It's just so interesting and different every time. I'm so happy I moved here.


End Blog.

I Surrender

Okay, I give up. I can't beat 47 minutes in the lawn mowing department. It took 58 minutes this evening. Mostly because I stalled it a few times. It was 10 days between mowing... so, again, I really should be cutting it every week. Le sigh. Too bad. I was busy doing other things like spending all my money and hanging out with my super fun friends.

But, I tried to beat the 47 minute mark and had a heart attack and got hit by lightning in the process. Okay, not really... but I'm out of shape and the first to admit it, so I get winded and sweaty and heart attack-y when I do things like this. Not only was I trying to race the 47 minute clock, but a thunderstorm. I did not beat either. The last 3 passes I had at my lawn were done in the rain... which turned into pouring rain with lots of thunder and lightning. I didn't get hit though. I guess that's just reserved for petroleum plants in these parts.

So, I give up. I don't think I CAN mow my lawn in less than 47 minutes. However, I would like to extend the challenge to anyone reading this blog. I challenge YOU to mow my lawn in less than 47 minutes.

Dare you.

Double dare you.

Triple dog dare you.


End Blog.

Lightning and Fire!

This happened last week, but I didn't get around to blogging about it because I'm lazy. I'm not sure if it made national news or not, but it was the only thing that was on tv here on Tuesday night. I know, because I was looking for election coverage and couldn't find it.

Lightning hit this giant petroleum tank and it caught on fire. Which is totally cool - even Mother Nature is against us using gas and hell bent on increasing prices.

Here's a summary story online: Lightning Strike Causes Petroleum Fire in Kansas City

Then, on Wednesday morning on my way to work, this is what I saw, since the firefighters could only let the tank burn out and there was a bunch of smoke. Take that, Mother Nature!






Traffic sucked that morning, and pretty much every other morning this past week. I think that my honeymoon is over. People found out that it wasn't that bad with all the construction going on, and they came back... and ruined everything.

Oh well. Maybe I'll have to start waking up earlier again... or continuing being a few minutes late for work.


End Blog.

Can't Blow Me Down

We had some pretty severe weather last night. I heard my first tornado sirens since moving here, so that was pretty exciting. Remy and I even did our duty and went duly into the basement. (Upon relating this story to a coworker, I was told, "You're not a true Midwesterner. You're supposed to go outside and look around, then discuss with your neighbors if you really think you need to take cover or not.")

The evening storms took over my prime time television, and on any other night I wouldn't have cared, but they cut into 30 Rock and I was forced to watch it online today instead of my actual TV. How rude.

The worst of the storm didn't hit until 2am. I know because it woke me up. I swear that I could see green lightning through my bedroom curtains. The amount of lightning, the super hard winds, and the constant thunder grumble scared me enough to turn on the television to see if I was about to die. And if I needed to put on shoes. I have the best priorities.

Turns out, at 2:06am, it seems a tornado went through the northern part of Kansas City, and quite possibly Gladstone as well. Here are maps showing my relation (A) to the destruction (B) I heard about this morning:

12 miles from me (Kansas City North)

Here's what it looked like:

3.6 miles from me (Gladstone)


Here's What it looked like:

Last night the television told me that it was severe hurricane force winds, possibly exceeding 80mph, but they didn't detect any rotation. The sirens I had heard earlier were not going off. So I went back to bed and didn't put my shoes on. I figured that meant I was safe, my sleepy head assuming if there was no tornado all would be fine. Obviously I learned nothing from Hugo, Andrew, Katrina and Rita. But... this wasn't a hurricane! It was just a bad thunderstorm with a bunch of wind. And with that thought in my mind, I safely and soundly slept until my alarm went off this morning.

(Apparently the sirens were never set off in Gladstone, either. They were given no reason to. But they woke up to a lot more problems than me. Destroyed homes, downed power lines, fallen trees.)

We lost power (if you're wondering why I'm speaking in the plural, I included Remy) overnight. I heard it go off and come back a couple times before I fell asleep thinking that it was a good thing I switched over to using my cell phone as my alarm clock a couple years ago.

This morning I had a meeting at an undisclosed location prior to work, so I went there first thing. When I arrived at work at 10:30, trace and DNA were having a big combined section meeting because they had nothing better to do - the power was out in our building. So, right after I got there, they sent everyone home.

Unfortunately, I had a luncheon to attend today, so I still had to "work". Which wasn't really work at all because I got to listen to some speakers and eat free food, but the point of the matter is that everyone else got to be at home sitting on their asses while I did not. I did get to go home at 2pm though, so I guess I can't really complain too much.

I watched a couple video news reports from the Kansas City Star on this and saw Chief Corwin in one of them, but they aren't very nice about giving away embed codes and I didn't feel like working hard enough to link it here... But I will link you to a printed story, because I'm super nice like that. And reading is good for you.

Anyway, point of the story - I'm alive, Remy's alive, Remy seemed less worried by the weather than I did, and the house is still in one piece. We were not sucked off the Earth by living in the Midwest, and yes, I still think it's a lovely place.


End Blog.

Snow in April

It's snowing.


In April.

Boooooooooo.


End Blog.

Severe Weather Time!

"This monster storm has several heads." ~The Weather Channel People

There's currently a huge storm going across the Midwest. We've had a lot of rain recently (probably 3 inches in the last 2 days). So, there's talk about flooding (monster head one), damaging winds (head two), and nickel-sized hail (numero tres), and maybe a tornado or two or ten (it must be a really big monster to support all of those mouths, I guess). But, to top it all off, super cold air is coming in with this storm, and by midnight, we might get snow, which may last until Saturday, although they aren't telling me to expect any accumulation.

Although, they might be lying to me because they're fully aware of the rampage I'll go on if we get more snow.

Nebraska and South Dakota already have snow. The forecast claims they will likely get somewhere between 1-2 feet of snow. Yes, feet. Minneapolis has sleet right now, but is expecting some sort of accumulation as well.

IT'S APRIL!!

Heh... Look at Nebraska. The entire state is covered in snow. Do you even know how BIG Nebraska is?

Right now I'm in a severe thunderstorm warning. (At least it's not a winter storm warning... yet.) There was a bit 'o hail earlier, but not a whole lot. I was driving home, trying to stay ahead of the huge storm the radio kept telling me was right behind me, while listening to traffic reports to make sure I didn't get stuck in the elements, on a bridge, in traffic. Obviously, I made it home without incident. (Even though the people here are still really stupid drivers when the weather is anything but sunny.) Nothing's happening right now. But, I did get hail at home. As you can see, it's not very big.

I say, "Bring on the hail!!" The Escape's in the garage and I have a brand new roof on my house. I feel nice and protected. I wanna see golf-ball sized hail. That would be awesome. I'd put it in a glass and use it as ice cubes. And I'd put a picture on here for you, too. Because I am that weird.

The weather out here is so much more awesome than it is on the east coast. (Really, everyone should experience one really huge Midwestern storm.)

This storm is moving north, from the south, and is juuuuust missing me. It's been reported that those red areas on the right of the picture have half-dollar-sized hail. So close! (I live kinda where the "Woodhill" label is located. You know, where it's not raining.)

Hey! Currently there's a tornado in Wayne County in Iowa. "A large and extremely dangerous tornado has been spotted by several people on the ground. Heavy rain and clouds may obscure the tornado. If you wait to see it, it may be too late. Take cover now." ~The Weather Channel People

I suppose I shouldn't want bad weather. I mean, I don't want my cable to go out... 30 Rock is brand new tonight!

Oooo... I hear thunder.


End Blog.

Nonessential Personnel

I woke up to a snow/sleet/freezing rain mess this morning. I didn't want to drive into work, but I'm a good employee, so off I went. I spun the tires a few times and had to drop the Escape down into a lower gear twice, but I made it safe and sound.

However, about 10 minutes into my commute, I saw this on 35 south right after the entrance ramp from 210 west.

It's an eighteen wheeler on its side with an SUV resting against a set of its tires... facing the wrong way. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but EVERYONE slowed down to look at it. I even had enough time to take this wonderful photo. Camera phones are spiffy.

After arriving at work, they sent us home five hours later. All department members deemed "Nonessential Personnel" were allowed to leave. (That's me.) Sweet! So, I went home after lunch.

On the way, I was prepared. I figured there wasn't much chance of getting that JB Hunt truck off of the road in five hours. I was right. On the way home traffic slowed again, and to my left, they were trying to hoist the truck back to its wheels. I didn't get a really good look at it because traffic was still moving a bit and I was blindly snapping pictures in the direction of the truck. Here's what I got:

The red truck is the one trying to right the fallen JB Hunt truck.

There's the truck still resting on its side.

And here's the side of the truck as I passed. You can see the chains wrapped around the middle of the trailer.

Anyway, this was my entertainment for the day. I got home slightly before 2pm and let all the dogs outside. Remy's a much bigger wuss about the cold and snow than our visitors are, but she wanted to play with them a lot more than they wanted to play with her.




You know, even though this weather got me out of work early, I am still really sick of it. I'd really enjoy it if we could get some warmth soon. I'm super tired of the 19 degree weather. I mean, I still haven't taken down my Christmas lights because it's been just too damn cold to do it.

I'm sure I should probably do something productive with my newfound time off, but I think I'm going to take a nap. Because I can. And I'm that lazy. And it's freakin' freezing outside and too crappy to really go anywhere.

So... Happy snowy Thursday, everyone.


End Blog.