Friday, August 24, 2007

It Was a Dark & Stormy Night


Afternoon and night to be more specific!

Yesterday, I'd run out in early afternoon to do a couple errands. Although the temperature was creeping toward 90 degrees and the humidity was high, the area was bathed in bright sunshine. Wispy clouds floated above our heads like cotton puffs.

As I approached my first destination, the weather guy came on the radio and said we were under a severe thunderstorm watch. I thought, so what else is new? For the past week and a half it's been a common occurrence because of a stuck frontal boundary roughly running through Iowa then slanting up into southern Wisconsin, and then down into Indiana. Night after night we've been pounded with rain and thunderstorms. I hadn't had a straight night of sound sleep for several days.

I did my shopping and was home in about an hour. As usual, I went to the computer to check for email, eager to get back to my project of increasing word count. It was then I remembered the weather. Like how could I forget with the little temperature icon flashing red in the corner of my screen. The little thingy has been like that for over a week thanks to flood warnings. I checked the radar and about fell off my chair. A dark red blob, the size of New Jersey was marching toward us at a very rapid speed. I looked to the window. The clouds were moving in.

Within an hour darkness had totally replaced the bright sunny day. The red blob was perched just west of me. Out the window the trees were at a right angle. I expected to see Auntie Em float by any second. I grabbed my computer and dashed downstairs to the first floor, behind the staircase away from the windows. And there I sat. Claps of thunder as loud as a bomb, filled the air. I could only imagine the lightning that had come before each one. Was my balcony furniture over in the next county? Had my windows blown in?

Fifteen minutes later it was over. Although my flowers looked like they'd been through a war, the electricity never went out and my windows were intact as were the trees, I blew out a sigh of relief. Others in the area weren't so blessed. Huge trees had toppled onto cars and into buildings. Electric lines were down. Roofs had caved in.

A couple hours later we were hit again. This time the power did go out for about a minute and the lightning was ferocious. Finally, around eight o'clock calm settled in. The good thing is, by tomorrow it will be in the 70s and no rain is expected. The bad thing is, we're expected to get hit again today.

I'll be here writing . . . It was a dark and stormy night seems like a good opening line don't you think?

2 comments:

Winter Peck said...

Ahh, we lost power for 20 minutes last night. Luckily, I had the computer off, but couldn't write in the dark, so I was in bed early last night.

Tonight looks the same, hopefully nothing bad will happen. All streams and rivers are flooded over here too. Bad1

Anonymous said...

It is a shame that Snoopy used it so frequently because, I have always like the opening line "it was a dark and stormy night." It immediately draws the reader into the story, since we all know that a dark an stormy night means that someone is just waiting to get murdered or robbed or something.