Becoming: Darkness falls early on the summer solstice

The view this morning.

We had a very big storm blow through last night around 8:00. I was at the library picking out books when a staff member announced over the p.a. system that there were tornado warnings for our area, and to find your family members in case the need arose to head for the library's shelters.

Instead, I headed for home (just several minutes away) as G was home with a caregiver, and I realized the caregiver didn't know where flashlights or candles were if the power went out. And if there was a need to head for shelter, I wanted to be able to help getting G to the basement. I got home in time, just before the rain hit. Shortly after that, the wind increased suddenly, the sky got very dark, the power went out, and we could hear cracking noises and bumps and thumps all around the house. All the while I was getting out candles, lighting them, and trying to find my windup flashlight (still unaccounted for, as are a number of things that got packed up last fall before the remodeling).

Lucky for us, the high wind was over quickly. Edited to add: We found out later it was a tornado. Eeek!

As the rain continued, we could see flashlights starting to appear outside. Clearly people better prepared than I.

The amount of tree limbs down, and the size of them, was astounding. Several trees had been split in half. Our street was blocked with large tree branches, but none were so big that a couple of people working together couldn't drag them to the curb, so the street got cleared pretty quickly. The only property damage seemed to be a car whose back window was smashed and a few dented gutters from falling limbs.

This morning we found out our power probably won't be restored for several days.

And so now I'm better prepared for another night or two without power. Made the rounds of the stores and stocked up on battery powered lights, an extra cooler, and bags of ice. As long as I have enough light to read a book, I'm fine. No television will be hard on G, though. And we are very lucky that the weather is going to be in the low seventies the next several days, so we won't roast without AC or fans.

Pictures tomorrow - we have power at work, but I don't have a connection for my camera with me. It's at home, where the power is out.

Edited to add: Pow-wah! Our power is back - even though I received an alert at 4 pm that it would be another 48 hours before power would be restored (which caused me to accept my boss' offer of a gas-powered generator, which he brought over and showed me how to use, and which I hooked up to our sump pumps and fridge), our power came back on at 6:15 pm, just as I was pulling into the driveway with 2 more gallons of gas to add to the pint or so that I had on hand when we started up the generator. Electricity is a wonderful thing. Here are some pictures from this morning - and our street is now clear, as the village crews have been hard at work picking up and chipping all the debris.