Saturday, May 06, 2006

Wild Weather in Waco

Well pardners, last night was a fun one in Waco. We had the usual line of spring thunderstorms head to town, and we went to bed figuring on nothing more than some rain and thunder.

Well, the thunder got very loud and bad, and before long we had the entire Muley family -- two parents, two kids and two dogs -- all in our bedroom for the night. Before we got to sleep, our power went out, like it did for 22,000 other residents of the Waco area. We dug out some candles and called the power company.

I must mention that my youngest daughter, who is nine years old, is terribly afraid of bad weather. It's one of those intense, unreasoning fears where she gets terrified and can't help herself. Logical talk and explanation will not make the fear abate a whit. My wife and I were up many hours comforting her as each wave of thunderstorms rolled in. My daughter slept between us, which is a comfy fit on a queen-size bed.

The storm finally abated over our area of town, and we all managed to fall asleep. When we awoke in the morning, our power was still off. We tried calling around to see how friends and family were doing, and learned that much phone service and power was still out. Anxious to see for ourselves, and not wanting to sit around a dark house, we all got in the car and drove around. That's when we learned that the winds had wreaked havoc over a large part of Waco. There were hundreds of trees down, many in the roadways, as well as signs blown down or destroyed, porta-cans blown in the street, traffic lights out, and even some businesses with roofs blown off. Even Wal-Mart, a place you think would have their own backup generator, was dark and closed.

We drove to the home of my mother-in-law, who unfortunately had her big tree in her front yard blow down on her house:



The good thing was the tree didn't appear to have pierced her roof. The amazing thing was that my mother-in-law somehow managed to sleep through this entire storm, a storm which knocked her power out and blew a big tree on her roof. We are not really surprised by this, however. She also slept through the Texas City explosion of 1947, the Alaskan earthquake of 1964 and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Not really.

Anyway, we're fine, and our local weathercasters I'm sure are dubbing off those airchecks to send off to the Emmy Awards people. Tonight we have power, and my belly is full of chicken fajitas. Life is good.

6 comments:

Rehkmira said...

Wow, Muley. That's some storm over in Waco. We here in Dirt Town only got rain, rain, rain, which we needed badly. Thanks for the comment; it's always nice to hear from other bloggers!

'Mira

Anonymous said...

Well, she doesn't have a sleeping problem! Glad y'all are okay.

Jenn said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I am glad that the tree missed your sleeping relatives. And that no trees got you either. Scary as it may be, your girls will always say, remember the time when . . . and recall it as deliciously exciting, I'll bet.

Stacy said...

Tis the season. Sounds like microbursts maybe. We get our fair share here as well. Take care.

sarahgrace said...

"Holy Cow!" there's my quote for the day : )
-glad you are all okay though!
I once (sort of) slept through a pretty bad lighting and wind storm while camping, meaning I was in a tent. Sounds like your mom and I have something in common. (Truthfully, I just figured there wasn't anything I could do about it, getting scared wasn't going to stop anything from happening, might as well sleep.)