A crazy storm ripped through our area yesterday. We are all safe!!
This is looking north from outside my office, just before noon. The sky was even darker in real life — I’ve never seen it so dark! Just a few minutes later, wind & rain ripped through & visibility was zip. Then our phones started lighting up with alerts, sirens started blaring, and torrential rain was slamming into our east-facing windows… “winds from the east” is never good. I am lucky to have a basement at work — and I’m able to navigate stairs (I didn’t even bring my cane with me), so I was down there for a little while. The power was out all afternoon, but we’re also lucky to have a generator so crucial power stayed on… lights, computers, fridge. Not the microwave, though, and I had brought quiche for lunch; I’ll eat almost any leftovers cold, but draw the line at quiche! I always keep a can of tuna and/or sardines in my desk drawer, so that’s what saved me yesterday. Phone & internet were spotty all afternoon. I work for an electrical contractor, so I was inevitably fielding storm-related service calls.
The cities of Neenah & Menasha were very hard hit by a confirmed tornado of TBD strength — about five miles +/- south of work. Menasha was “closed” yesterday, as was a big section of highway — I saw footage of vehicles actually wrapped up in huge pieces of sheet metal that had flown off of nearby buildings. There is a LOT of damage and it’s going to take a LONG time to clean up & recover. We experienced an F2 tornado a few years ago that destroyed several homes in our city — one of which was only two blocks from home. That one seemed to “bounce” whereas yesterday’s was on the ground for a while, devastating a mile-wide path.
Anyway, it’s heartwarming to see our communities come together to offer help, from restaurants serving free meals to individuals making room in their storage units.
