We got blasted here in DC yesterday by a thunderstorm, almost completely out of nowhere. Storms were in the forecast, but only around 50%, and I didn't see anything predicting the ferocity with which we ultimately got hit. The worst of it didn't last long, only about ten minutes or so, but it completely fucked shit up. It seemed like just a "normal" thunderstorm at first, and then at some point it was like, Man, this actually pretty intense, and then Whoa, this is legit scary. It was the worst storm we've had here since the derecho of 2012.
But we're all good now. I hunkered down in my basement (actually, I just happened to be down there working but whatever), which was a relatively safe place to be, as it's mostly underground, and there aren't many windows. S and the boys waited it out in our car in a parking lot. We lost power, and it seemed like it was going to be at least a day until they got it back up and running, but at 2 am this morning we were rudely/pleasantly awakened by every light and electronic device in our house turning on simultaneously. I gotta hand it to our power supplier Pepco. They are pretty good about getting the lights back on. This was the longest our power has been out that I can remember, and when I saw the number of fallen trees out on the streets and sidewalks today, it's like, Yeah, that makes sense. Some power lines are gonna go down and some transformers are gonna pop. You can only do so much to safeguard against the wrath of the gods.
We actually hosted a party at our last night despite not having any power. It was an end-of-the-year celebration for Lil' S2's flag football team. The storm came through about 4:15, and the party was supposed to start at 5:00. So, we texted everybody on the team telling them that we didn't have power, but nobody had power, so everybody figured we all might as well hang out in the dark together. Also, we had a taco bar for 25 people, and I'm sure nobody else felt like making dinner. It worked out really well, actually. The kids just spooked each other out in our dark basement, and the adults hung out on our covered porch. And then eventually the rain stopped and the clouds thinned, and it wasn't that dark anymore, and the kids were even able to play outside.
But we still didn't have any power. Lil' S1 went to my sister-in-law's who lives about a mile away and never lost power, and Lil' S2 slept over at the house of the one kid on his team whose power came back on right away. (It was an impromptu slumber party -- very nice of the parents to do that.) So, it was just S and I, which made things much more tolerable, if not exactly pleasant. The main thing is the AC -- it's getting hot here, now (next week is triple digits... ugh) -- but thankfully our basement never really gets that hot, so we slept in the guestroom down there.
It's funny the little things that you just totally take for granted until they're gone. I formulated this grand plan to use my iPhone hotspot to download podcasts to my iPad, which was fully charged, light a couple candles, and tear through all the dishes from the party by hand, since obviously we couldn't use our dishwasher. But once I started washing things, all the food and gunk clogged up the drain and created a huge pool in our sink, so I flipped the disposal on, and of course nothing happened because it's electric. Damn. Foiled. I just left them for the next day and watched Tires instead.
Alright a few pics of the wreckage and then that's the post.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment