Close Call

I just went through something very intense and exciting.

As I was putting something into my van, the wind started blowing extremely hard, and it whipped my hair around my face. At the same time it also started raining hard and hailing. Within a couple of seconds, the huge willow right next to me cracked and was going down. I started screaming, and I ran away from the tree. I could hardly see anything because of my hair in my face but made it to the back of the shop next to the tree. When I peeked out, a large part of the tree was down and even though it broke on my side, it had fallen the other way. What a blessing! If it had fallen towards me, it would have taken out my van and my son's room.

I ended up going into the shop to wait out the storm. The power was out and many hours later is still out. It took me quite some time to get back to my home because of the trees and power lines down on the roads. I ended up driving all around and saw a lot of trees down on homes and garages, roofs blown off, fences blown away.

I've never seen anything like this except on television. It's like a small tornado went through, and I hope no one was injured.

This tiny episode is nothing compared to the devastation in Japan right now, but for us, it's very strange weather, very strange.

Just as I took this photo, another huge branch fell of this tree. It was amazing to stand there and just have it happen right in front of me.