Microburst and A Hoterless Fire

Before I tell you about the storm, a few weeks ago I went to shut down my father's bank account. I received the letter to confirm that the account was closed, and the next day I went to the bank to deposit money, only to discover that all our accounts that had my name on it had been closed. I received a letter later that day informing me of this. The teller told me that it would take a day or so to reopen the accounts. Unfortunately for us, I have several bills that are paid atomatically from this account. None of them got paid and the bank never called back to tell me if the account was reopened. We went back to our old bank, but getting the money needed to pay those bills was slow in coming from them. We also made a few decisions that now we see were not wise ones, but necessary ones. We are back on track now, trying to salvage things.

I went to my mother's house last week to do some work. On the way it was storming and my windshield wipers quit on me. I please please please all the way to her house, hoping that the rain didn't pick back up. I was lucky and it didn't until after I pulled into her driveway. I called my husband to tell him that I was going to sit out the rain at my mother's because of this, and that the weather man said it would clear up after dark.

My mother and I went downstairs to look on the computer to see what the storm were doing. Wow did the one headed this way look rather nasty. It was a solid red on the radar. It might be later than I thought going home. We stepped outside after the heaviest part of the storm passed to have a smoke. As we sat talking my little brother and his wife came walking up in a hurry, "did you see the fire?" he asked. No of course not. we walked the one house length t the corner of the street, barefoot, to see flames licking the treetops. My new sister-in-law called the fire department, informing them that it looked like a transformer on fire. Oh I was gleeful because I was right. SO THERE MOTHER! An hour or so earlier I had heard the explosion and informed my mother that it had sounded like a transformer had exploded. She hadn't heard anything, so of course I was wrong. Don't question the daughter, humph.

We waited while the single rescue truck with a total of two firemen arrived. We could here sirens going off everywhere around us, but only these two men showed up. People tend to forget how to drive in the rain, so it was a busy night. We watched as they tried to figure out how to get into the woods to the fire. I could understand. We were in the middle of a city that sits in the Prairie, how many forest fires do this guys really fight? It was drizzling and even though my mother is voyeuristic I convinced her to go back to the house. hehe, We ran upstairs and watched out the window.

After a time my mother was satisfied watching from our perch, plus she was worried that the fire would spread down the line and catch the house on fire. This time in shoes and a jacket we went to ribber neck. Here is the time I feel it would have been appropriate for us to have martini glasses in our hands, my mother suggested lawn chairs. Dry and sarcastic humor comes very quickly to my mother and my lips. We watched from the street as the men shot water through the trees aggravating the electrical fire. I had to ask my mother if they realized what type of fire it was, and if we should go remind them.

After a time the fire men came over to us to ask if we were the women that lived a hous down. oh busted, I told mom they had seen us peeking through the window like a couple of perverts. The firemen couldn't figure out what the line was for. No one had lost electricity. They did realize it was electrical, but they couldn't get to it with the small container of foam they had. They had to wait for back up.

My mother asked me about the different colors of the fire, I proceeded to tell her the hottest color to the...um well...hoterless. See martini glasses would have explained it better.

After the rain past I headed home. Only to wake the next morning to this:



This post from a privacy fence leaning against my house


I mean embedded in my house. The shower stall had prevent it from going all the way through.


Our horse tank, the one we bought a few months back for so cheap...was over a mile away in a wheat field. It had crashed through at least four different cattle fences to get to where it was.


Part of the privacy fence that was used to shelter our well. This is only half of it. And a bunch of junk that ended up resting around the well.


The other half of the fence ended up in the drive way, just missing the corner of the house.


The wood on my covered deck was blown off.





And this was all that was left in our yard of our trampoline. We found the rest scattered through our neighbor's field and the base and canvass was wadded up 1/2 mile down the road in a lagoon.

A micro burst, sudden strong isolated wind, had pushed through our yard. Actually it looks as though it started in our yard, because if you follow the path of destruction, the beehives where fine, but everything else in the path for 2 miles is broken, gone destroyed. We went and gathered our things from other's yards. Making nice with the neighbors.

On a positive note, our electric bill for the month is $6. Sometimes it is good to be a homesteader.