Thoughts While Grilling Pork During a Tornado

This past Wednesday at least two tornadoes struck within a few miles of my house. The first one started about 4:30PM. I had finished with a meeting for work at about 4:15PM, walked downstairs to talk with Suzanne, and was asked a question by my daughter: “Papa, will there be a tornado?” I laughed because…well…we never get tornadoes and told her not to worry about anything.

We lost power a few minutes later. I was in the middle of an instant message discussion with a colleague and was cut off. The power came back briefly and then was gone. It still hasn’t come back. But at the time we didn’t have any idea about what was happening. We just assumed there would be no soccer practice and that we should get dinner ready on the grill. It wasn’t raining so I went outside and started the grill.

By about 6PM I noticed a very interesting cloud formation to the North of our house. There was a lot of lightning as well and I stood there, watching, and grilling. Suzanne and my daughter joined me for a while as well, just watching the lightning strikes and unusual cloud formations roll by. Soon enough dinner was done, the storm had passed, and as we ate we all started wondering if the power would come back on before nightfall.

Later on I realized that I had cooked dinner, on my deck, in between two tornadoes that rolled through our area. I’m thinking that makes me eligible for some kind of Grilling Hall of Fame. At the very least I should earn a nomination for a Darwin Award.

I also started thinking about a lot of things and decided to start writing them down with the idea that I would eventually write a blog post. A third storm came through about 8PM and by then we knew that the rumors of tornadoes were real because of the debris we were finding in our yard. So we rode out the last storm in the basement, just to be as safe as possible, as I had finally gotten a weather map to display on my Droid and could see a band of deep red heading our way. While they were coming I started making notes of my thoughts and continued with them throughout the day today. Here you go:

• The longest power outage I can ever recall having is a few hours, possibly more during the overnight hours. So far we have been without power for over 29 hours and it looks like we are facing at least 40 more. Since our town wasn’t directly hit, and neighboring towns have power, this seems very, very, very odd to me.
• When I lived in Washington state we were often reminded about having a kit ready so we would be prepared to survive for up to 72 hours without power. I laughed at such a thing. I mean, who would put themselves in such a situation as to be without power for that long? It seemed silly. It doesn’t anymore.
• My house has no power and yet every time I enter a dark room I immediately flip the light switch. Talk about old habits dying hard. I wonder how long it will be before I stop doing that?
• My house is dark, even in the middle of the day, thus the reason for always wanting to turn on a light. We need more natural light. I wonder how much electricity I could have avoided using had the architect simply put in a few extra windows, or had the house face a different direction?
• The application ‘DroidLight’ is awesome. Download it now, you’ll thank me later. Especially if your house doesn’t have enough light.
• Know what else is awesome? Car chargers. Get one for your phone. You’ll thank me later.
• Allie Fox was right, ice is civilization. Many times I wanted to have a glass of ice water but couldn’t because (1) the ice machine had no power and (2) neither did the water dispenser. So, I had to reach into the ice bin and drink from the tap like I was back in the Stone Ages.
• Ice melts, by the way, so if your power goes out and you think it will be out all night then you might want to empty your ice bin before you go to sleep. Unless, of course, you enjoy waking up to a big puddle on your kitchen floor and you don’t even own a dog.
• Only people that have actually been in a war zone should be allowed to use the phrase “this looks like a war zone”. I feel strongly about this.
• You know those clock-radios that come with a battery for when the power goes out? Yeah, well…those batteries don’t work the radio part, only the clock part…and they didn’t even do that! So, we had no radio to get information from, we only had our phones.
• On a related note, Twitter was again my number one resource for getting details. I had no power, and no radio, but I could follow the #westernma and #matornado hashtags to get updates.
• When the power goes out they close the liquor stores. Also, in my state, liquor stores are closed on Memorial Day. I want both of these things changed.
• Sitting in your car with your spouse, in the driveway, listening to AM radio, and drinking wine is a wonderful way to spend a June evening. Right up until Senator Kerry speaks, of course. That’s when you know it is time for bed.
• Car radios have awful AM radio reception. Reception for FM is fine, but most every FM station is owned by some corporation and has few (if any) local DJs, so you aren’t going to get any updates from FM stations just a bunch of pre-programmed crap. That’s why Twitter was so full of win for us, we could get some details on what was happening.
• Very few people around here have any idea what a funnel cloud would look like, but this woman did. Check out how the cars keep driving by. Nobody is worried about the storm. There are two reasons for this: first is that they don’t know what to look for and second is they can’t see through the buildings and trees. This isn’t the midwest plains here, we have trees, and hills, and buildings that all obscure the horizon. Do you think those people would still be driving around if they could see the funnel cloud? Of course not. I am amazed that more people were not killed as a result.
• You can see a bunch more videos here. Watching a tornado form over a river is nothing short of amazing. I always wanted to experience as many different types of natural events as possible. I’m not sure I can quite cross this one off my list, but I think we are pretty close.
• Trees can be stripped of their bark and snapped in half rather easily. This amazes me.
• I will never again think of storm reports in the same way, and will always have trepidation when I see a strong breeze coming my way.
• The people I see on the news right now…even national news reports…are my neighbors and my friends and I can’t believe that all of their worldly possessions have been scattered to the winds. This just doesn’t happen here.
• Planes continued to take off and land from nearby Bradley airport (BDL). So, how bad could things have been, right?
• Most people around the world are going to see images of Springfield and say “wow, look at all the destruction” and not realize that much of Springfield already looked like hell only now there is a tree in the road. Seems a shame it takes a disaster for anyone to notice, and I wonder how things will look after they are rebuilt. Let’s hope for an upgrade.

That’s all I have for now, but this story isn’t quite finished yet.