No, I'm Not Dead Yet

But I have definitely been blowing in the wind today. Took some more big nasty weather hits. I looked at the statewide weather radar before I left for work and there were eleven tornado warning boxes scattered all over the state. By the time I got to work four of them were directly west of us and coming in fast.

It's all over the national news, apparently. I've been getting emails from friends and family back home saying "Are you daid, boy?"

Naw, aint daid yet!

It hadn't rained a drop until I got into the parking lot, then it started with a few of those widely scattered big fat raindrops that hit like toads dropping from the sky. One of them hit the brim of my hat and knocked it down onto the top of my glasses.

Then as I was walking up to the admin building I heard this "pock!" and looked down and saw a small hailstone, about the size of a pea, bouncing across the ground. Snap! I ran for shelter, but the hail stopped just as fast as it started.

I had already lost power at home once this morning and hoped we weren't going to be having any more of that at work. I was wrong. Later on when I went to lock up the admin building I no sooner walked into the hall and turned the corner when "poof!" the lights went out. I almost smacked into the wall in the dark. And when the power went out it killed the power to the siren outside too, apparently. It died when the lights did. That was kind of spooky. That one also knocked out some of our phone lines for awhile. Only the control center could call outside of the institution for a couple of hours. Whee!

I have to tell you, getting everybody secured and sheltered and fed at the same time is quite challenging. You have to time the movements in between little breaks in the storm. It got done, but it sure took awhile. We were lucky we didn't get anybody hurt.

Last night when I was out on the yard everybody kept talking and worrying about the storms that were rolling in today. I kept saying "Don't worry. It will be okay." Finally after the third or fourth time I said that someone said "We might get a tornado! Why the snap do you keep saying it will be okay?" I just gave them my widest smile and said "Because I'll be safe up in the comm room! It will be fine!"

Boy, I got a cussing out for that one, let me tell you.

We didn't get hit by an actual tornado, but we got straight line winds and rain and hail and lightning. Everything but a tornado. There was one small one reported just south of us heading our way but it dissipated before it could get here. And there was baseball sized hail reported up north of us.

Dodged another bullet. I hope we can keep dancing around long enough to survive storm season.

There's supposed to be another round working it's way in tomorrow night. Of course. My night on the yard and my night for the Del Norte walk. Joy!

So Thursday will be Grey Day. That should be easy. Just look under my hat. It will also be National Spelling Bee Day. And amazingly enough, that seems to be all. A simple day to celebrate for a change. Yay!