Like Carol Ann in Poltergeist actually
We've had nothing but non-stop vicious thunderstorms rip through our area for the past week. Actually more than a week now. This weekend was by far the worst. Last night was the climax. Between the far south side of Chicago and up by me, we had a total of 6 tornados rip through the Chicago metro area over the weekend. But last night, oh last night was special. Yesterday morning it started off with some "healthy" storms, then we actually had some sun for the majority of the afternoon. Of course it was steamier than a Turkish Bath but ok. So I'm all of a sudden living in Florida now.............Sometime around 8:30-ish last night, I'm sitting watching some TV when I hear another roll of thunder. Hmm, I think to myself. About 20 minutes later my mom texts me that there's a whole other line of big storms headed our way. Super. Ok, batten down the hatches kids - it's going to be a bumpy ride! Of course I didn't realize just how bumpy. At around 9:30 pm, my power goes out. Splendid. I'm hoping beyond all hope that it's only out for a few minutes - 1 hour at the most. Nope. I have no batteries for the only flashlight I have. I can't find candles anywhere in my house, and when I do think of some tealights that I have - I can't find any sort of lighter. This shouldn't be hard since I used to be a smoker and have kept all my lighters. I end up opening my front door because in our common hallway there's the backup emergency light. I needed some kind of light to flood into my house so I can do some sort of search. I'm on the phone with my mom. Of course, my cell phone battery's low and I now have no way of charging it since the electricity's out. And this is my only phone by the way. Finally I find a lighter in my junk drawer. I start lighting as many tealights as possible without setting anything on fire or spilling candle wax. It felt like a monestary. It was terrible. The wind, the pounding rain, the lightning made it look like God's strobe light and the thunder was pounding the ground. Now it's after 10:00 pm and still no sign of the storm letting up and still no power. Great. I have to have an alarm clock to get up for work in the morning. I also need to go to sleep. I can't sleep in these conditions. Other than the raging storm outside, it was still as can be in my house. I can't sleep in that. But I have nothing else to do so I lay down and put my MP3 player on so I at least had a radio for in case there's a tornado warning issued. Nothing. Nobody seemed to care about the maelstrom out their doors. So I try to relax but I'm worried that the power won't be back on by morning. I'm worried that the food in my fridge and freezer will spoil. I'm worried that I'll oversleep and not call my boss to tell her why I can't come in. I'm worried that I won't hear the tornado sirens going off if they do. So I can't relax. Eventually I start to doze every now and then. Probably around 1:00 am, I wake to hear *gasp* the tornado sirens going off in the town just next door to mine. Lovely. And still nothing on the radio tells of a possible sighting or anything. I go back out into the hallway to look out the front door, the emergency light is now out and we're in complete and total darkness. Weird thing is that as I was looking outside and listening to the siren, it seemed to me that the storm had died down. *shrugs* Finally abou an hour later, the power's back on. Yay! Victory! So I set up my clock and my alarm (I'll get all of 3 hours of sleep, lovely)..........I go to sleep. I wake up an hour after my alarm was to have gone off. Oh but wait, that's right! I forgot, alarms don't go off unless THEY'RE TURNED ON. :roll: :oops: Fantastic. So I go back to sleep for another hour and figured I'm already going to miss my train I'll just take a later one. Whatever. I finally get up to get ready, I'm out the door by 7:25. I'd looked at the schedule and the next available train for me is 7:48 am. Swell, I'll have just enough time to get to the station, find a parking spot (which is next to gold anymore since there are so many more people taking the train to work now) and catch the train. I'll be an hour late for work. I get to the station, there's a train pulling up, it's 7:38. Ok fine, I have plenty of time before my train comes. Pull out my schedule to make sure of the next available train at 7:48 and nope, no the train that's now leaving the station without me is the one I was supposed to catch. I now have to wait until 8:54!!!! *SIGH* Oh.My.God. So now the real internal argument starts. Do I go into work or just call it a day and stay at home in bed? If I go to work, should I go back home and have some breakfast and risk losing a parking spot for good and miss another train??? Do I just sit here in my car for the next hour and 20 minutes?? I call my mom. Woke her up. She suggests I call my stepdad and have him meet me at the diner that's across the street from the station for some coffee or whatever. So I do. But he didn't get there until 8:30, but we sat anyway and had ourselves some coffee and a chit chat. He brought me a newspaper for the train ride in. Then he walks me over to the platform and waits with me which was nice. But I forgot my jacket and while it might be 90 degrees outside, it's only ever about 20 below on the trains. So you still need to dress like it's winter because it's so damn cold in there. Don't have that. I'm totally disoriented. And then of course, my train's running 10 minutes late. :roll: :blink: I come into work expecting a load of paperwork to get through and nothing. I busted my arse to get in for nothing. I'm so tired now. And we're still supposed to get more storms today. I had a conversation with God last night. You see, I love thunderstorms. But even for me this is extreme. In recent weeks they kept stalling out around us. Everybody around me kept getting these awesome storms and my area got nothing. I started whining about it. So apparently God showed me! HA HA HA!!! So we had a discussion last night that I got the idea and wished that He would stop sending these horrible storms my way. I've had my fill thank you very much! :wink:

I don't envy you, Gnat. We had a few thunderstorms over here lately, but no tornadoes, luckily. Hope tornadoes will get out of your area soon.

What a nightmare, Gnat! I hope your Tuesday goes better. We're not prone to tornados or lightning storms, but we got a lot of rain today and then around eight o'clock, one of my co-workers pointed out to me that the local foothills had SNOW - in June. Not just the mountains, but the local foothills. Can you believe that!

We had snow in March over here, not just the mountains or the foothills, but in the plains, which is unusual, especially so much snow as to stop traffic and to force airports to close, but I've never heard of snow in June, apart from high up on mountain tops.

Yes Gaff, unfortunately I can believe that. :???: We're under flood warnings in my area...again. And in Wisconsin, in the Dells particuarly, there was a lake that was so flooded it washed some houses away. It's an area that most know for both the Tommy Bartlett Water Show and the ride on the Ducks. It's all gone now. It's awful. But today it's dry and they're saying no rain until Friday. So hopefully we can dry out a bit here.

Believe me,Gnat, I can relate to everything you've said. Surely hope things can calm down soon for you. We,here,know all about it---only too well!!!! Good luck,Darlin'!

Well, the snow in the foothills melted fast, but it was still very weird. I've worried about you Mid-westerners when I've heard about the weather on the news. I hope it calms down for you and we get a little warmth. I've been through the Dells a few times and it is a beautiful area. Sad to hear of the damage. I hope they can recover quickly.

Excuse the French, but the ubiquitous Brit term "Bloody weather!" seems highly appropriate here :???: We've actually had some sunshine, which can only be described as 'glorious'!!!!!!! Of course, I only managed to catch one day of it and I expect that may be our lot for this year, but let's not look on the dark side..........;angry: Hope things improve for you soon, Gnat!

Oh Matie I bet you can girl! You guys are roasting down there in the South aren't ya??? Are you getting the storms too?? We're actually experiencing lovely weather right now. Second day in a row of sunshine and lower 80's. Perfect! But our area is still under a flood warning because of all the flooding to the north in Wisconsin. With their rivers being swollen, it's coming down into some of ours and flooding ours now. I saw on the radar this morning a big system heading our way. They're saying a storm tomorrow afternoon sometime. Keep your fingers crossed that it bypasses us! Stevie - yes, I have to agree with those sentiments. Gaff - I'm glad the snow's melted because that's totally weird. I know that you're getting less than summery temps out by you too - hope it warms up some for you soon! :sun

The snow didn't stick, but you could see it on the hills for a few hours. We were still rainy today, though the temp was closer to 60F and there are supposed to be a few days of sun at the end of the week, maybe even tomorrow. Gnat, hope you and Ship avoid the storms. Stevie, my wish is that you get sun on your next day off. I mean you don't want to go to Tunisia far too pale.

Oh yeah,we're baking in the South,alright! In the 90's nearly everyday. Whew! Drains the sap right out of you.....no more big storms.....yet though (fingers crossed). We're hoping for the best in THAT area. Sure do wish all those folks who are suffering so from the terrible flooding some much-needed relief very soon.

Well we had another wave of storms roll through last night. I was woken up at around 1:30 in the morning by one. It was actually more wind than anything else. There was some thunder and lightning, but not much. The wind was simply brutal. I laid there thinking and praying that my electricity wouldn't go out - again. And then at some point while lying in bed, I could swear I heard the tornado sirens going off again. They were a bit faint so it wasn't my township's sirens, but somewhere close by had their alarm going off. I couldn't be sure if I was hearing it or not and was too tired to get up and turn the TV on to see if we were under a tornado warning. I figured, too, that my satellite was probably knocked out anyway. So I just stayed in bed and waited out the storm. Of course, I talked to my mom earlier and she said that their sirens did in fact go off around 1:00 am. And then she got a call from the local emergency dept. regarding a nasty storm heading in their direction that was producing tornados. So she woke the kids and the hubby and got ready in case they had to make a run for the basement. But then absolutely nothing happened. When she next checked the weather, the system had broken into 2 and went around her area. Problem is they've got this big, old tree that's completely rotted and needs to be cut down. It's in their front yard and when there's big winds, the branches come down all over the place. She doesn't care much about the house because of course they have insurance, but she's worried that if the kids are out in the front playing and a branch falls.....it could be bad. But it's made worse when storms of this magnitude come through. Unfortunately our neighbors to the north (in Wisconsin) didn't fair as well. And so the flood warnings continue because they got even more rain and storms and general nasty weather last night. What we here in Northern Illinois are experiencing isn't flooding because of a lot of rain here, but more from the runoff from rivers and lakes in Wisconsin. That water has nowhere to go but south - into Illinois' rivers. Thus our issue. It's getting bad and we're supposed to be getting storms over the next few days still. And again I say "Enough!" The animals are starting to line up 2 by 2! Geese and ducks are even running for dryer spots in their life jackets! :blink: :wink: :roll: I feel for the people in Iowa.......it's worse there than it is even here. Cedar Rapids is completely under water. I don't think we have any YoZoners there, but if you're close - Be Safe!!!!!

I can only try to imagine what it is like to be under the thread of a tornado. Hope that if there are Yo-Zoners living in the areas hit by tornado, they are safe.

I won't complain about our cold weather any more after looking at pictures of Iowa and Wisconsin on the news. I hope you and your family stay safe, Gnat. And Ship in Tennessee and anyone else in that general area.

We had a lovely barbie for Sarah's birthday last night and despite a damp, cloudy start the day turned out to be sunny and warm (I'm whispering in case the weather man hears....) Something strange has been happening in my street. I think the local council is on something. People have been getting letters informing them that play equipment such as swings/ see-saws/sandpits etc are "unsightly" and should be "removed" from the gardens!!!!??????:blink: I await a letter about the bevvie of tipsy teens under my gazebo....... :roll: