Surprise storm
Yesterday morning I had the weirdness of someone calling my name and seeing a strange sulfurous light out back. I knew a storm was coming but didn't expect anything near what we got.
Yesterday afternoon about 3 the lights started fading in and out. Then gone in an instant. Closed out the computer on the battery back up surge protector and started looking around. Nothing happening inside or out. Not even much rain.
So I decided to walk around a bit outside. As I rounded the circle road I live on, I heard a gushing roar. It sounded like someone had pulled on a portable generator. Nope. Off to the SW the trees were bent almost double. I watched the wind approach and the roar got louder and louder. Along with the wind came a long low grumble of thunder, rolling ever closer. And with the wind and the thunder came the gush of rain. The temperature dropped 14 degrees in that half hour.
Electric company reported 39000 + customers without power -- average 3 people per household and we're looking at close to 120,000 people. No estimates of when power would be restored due to the scope of the outage.
Storm was all over within a half hour. But it sent the cat to ground for a couple of hours. I checked with T at work. He had power. The radio said that the storm had marched up the valley, hung a right at Oregon City and kept heading east. radconbob reported the storm hit his place 200 miles east of us 2 hours after it hit me.
I sat in the kitchen by the double window reading as long as I had enough light. Sandwiches for dinner. Turned on the gas log when the house got cold. The stove doesn't heat things enough to cook on but it did warm up cold coffee and I made a cup of tea on it. Candles and flashlights allowed me to keep reading.
Interesting how my eyes adjusted to the semi-dark quite well. Not enough light to comfortably read by, but I navigated most of the house with just a candle.
I appreciated the quiet. No fridge humming, no furnace blowing, no radio, TV or computer noises. Just me and the fire.
Power came back at 2 AM. A relief and a bit of a disappointment.
Yesterday afternoon about 3 the lights started fading in and out. Then gone in an instant. Closed out the computer on the battery back up surge protector and started looking around. Nothing happening inside or out. Not even much rain.
So I decided to walk around a bit outside. As I rounded the circle road I live on, I heard a gushing roar. It sounded like someone had pulled on a portable generator. Nope. Off to the SW the trees were bent almost double. I watched the wind approach and the roar got louder and louder. Along with the wind came a long low grumble of thunder, rolling ever closer. And with the wind and the thunder came the gush of rain. The temperature dropped 14 degrees in that half hour.
Electric company reported 39000 + customers without power -- average 3 people per household and we're looking at close to 120,000 people. No estimates of when power would be restored due to the scope of the outage.
Storm was all over within a half hour. But it sent the cat to ground for a couple of hours. I checked with T at work. He had power. The radio said that the storm had marched up the valley, hung a right at Oregon City and kept heading east. radconbob reported the storm hit his place 200 miles east of us 2 hours after it hit me.
I sat in the kitchen by the double window reading as long as I had enough light. Sandwiches for dinner. Turned on the gas log when the house got cold. The stove doesn't heat things enough to cook on but it did warm up cold coffee and I made a cup of tea on it. Candles and flashlights allowed me to keep reading.
Interesting how my eyes adjusted to the semi-dark quite well. Not enough light to comfortably read by, but I navigated most of the house with just a candle.
I appreciated the quiet. No fridge humming, no furnace blowing, no radio, TV or computer noises. Just me and the fire.
Power came back at 2 AM. A relief and a bit of a disappointment.