Stormy Weather

A week ago Wednesday, I was at work and seeing my first couple patient's of the morning when a girl I work with came up to me and said, "Paula, Misty's husband just called and said that a storm came through their neighborhood and part of their roof is now missing." This was especially unsettling because Misty lives in my neighborhood. I went to find Misty to hear what had happened. She told me that there was a really bad storm that had come through our area and there was a lot of damage in our neighborhood. Zack was out of town and there was no way for me to leave work to go check on our house. So, I asked Misty if her husband would mind going to check on my house.

While he was trying to go to our side of the neighborhood, we kept hearing more and more reports of damage, road closings, and funnel cloud sightings. A funnel cloud had been seen right in front of one of our friends neighborhoods. So, I called Hector and Christy up to find out if they were ok. Thankfully they were. Hector had to get out to go to an appointment and I told him that most of the roads in and out of our area were closed. As we were talking, I was telling him about the damage someone had reported in my neighborhood and that Zack was out of town...I could hear myself getting teary...I was feeling very frustrated and trapped....the unknown is very frightening. So, Hector told me that he would try to drive past my house on his way out of our area. While I was talking with him Misty came to tell me that her husband could not get to our side of the neighborhood because there were firetrucks, ambulances, and police everywhere....wow...those are some comforting words.

I realize that it was just a house and I was SO very thankful that Zack and I were both safe, but there is something about the anxiety of just not knowing...and not knowing how to go forward if something had happened...I was REALLY wishing that Zack was not out of town!

Hector called me back to let me know that our house looked fine, but that the roads were impassable in many places. whew...at least I could co through the rest of my day without worrying that I had no home to go to that night.

Work was a little crazy. There had been a lot of damage in town and one of our hospitals had lost power and several of its windows were blown out. Were my office is, next to the other hospital, we had a few flickers of power, but no evidence of the severity of the things that had happened all around us.



I left work and headed home...not even sure if I would be able to get there as so many of the roads to my house had been closed during the day. I was horrified by the degree of damage that I saw as I drove home. The first route that I tried ended with a big road closed sign. I tried a second way home and was able to get to my street. I have never seen so many people out and about in our neighborhood. All of my neighbors were out talking. So, I walked over to them and asked about the storms and their damage. My neighbor told me that we had gotten lucky and that he hadn't. as I followed him around the back of our houses, I understood what he meant. A large pine tree had fallen in both our yards. The one that fell in our yard was just short of hitting our house while the one that fell in his yard had struck the back left side of his roof.



I surveyed the damage in the neighborhood. Talked with a couple neighbors and talked to Zack. We were supposed to be getting another line of storms that night and they were saying that they were going to be worse than what we had already had. I did not really want to be at home along if we got worse storms throughout the night. So, I called up Dr. D an told her that I would take her up on her offer to come and stay with her and her family.

I gathered up some flashlights and some card games and headed over to her house. i called Zack to let him know where I would be and to tell him that he needed to be aware that more storms were coming to our area. Zack was supposed to be flying home that night and I didn't really want him driving in that weather. I told him he should probably go and stay with his parents rather than driving home.

Dr. D and her husband had lit their gas burners on their stove and they made some dinner for us, hamburgers and mac and cheese. Shortly after dinner, the wind started picking up and again and clouds started blowing in. There was a tornado warning, and so we headed down into Dr. D's storm cellar. We sat down there for about 30 minutes and then the storm had past. about 15 minuted later, a second tornado warning was issued for our area...and we went back into the cellar. We decided to play a game to pass the time. We had tornado warning after tornado warning issued almost every 5-10 minutes for a while.

Zack called to let me know that his plane was delay...then an hour later txt'd to let me know he was leaving. It was about midnight when we were able to leave the storm shelter. I went to get into bed and checked my cell phone to see if Zack had called or txt'd. He hadn't which made me nervous....He should have landed by then. So, I tried to call...and txt...and call again. Trying not to panic. I finally him and said, "where are you?are you safe? call me as soon as you get this!!!". At about 2:45 am, Zack txt'd me to let me know that his plane had gotten to Atlanta and then had to circle for a couple hours due to high winds only to be rerouted to Charlotte NC. He was stuck in Charlotte and would be spending the night in the airport. At least I knew where he was and then I was able to go to sleep.

I got up early Thursday morning and headed back to our house to see how we had fared through the night. I got to the turn right before our street and there was a road closed barricade. I snuck around it and headed to our street. The road was closed because of all of the work being done at the substation near our house. I changed clothes and headed out to one of our friend's house as I was supposed to be taking care of their little one that day. My cell phone had died and we of course had no power at home for me to recharge it and my car charger was in the car that Zack had driven down to ATL. I went and sat in our friends driveway for a while until they got home. They pulled up and told me that because of the storms they were not going to need me to watch their child and so we chit chatted for a while.

I headed to work to charge my phone so that my friends could call if they ended up needing me after all. They were trying to get things worked out. I also wanted Zack to be able to get in touch with me so that I knew what was going on with him. Apparently my phone takes FOREVER to charge. I ended up getting some lunch while I was there. We had very few groceries in the house and no power at home. So it made sense. Dr. D and I headed over to the hospital cafeteria.

Shortly after lunch, I headed home again. I noticed a puddle of water coming out of our freezer...the ice was starting to melt. sigh.

Zack finally got home around 6 o'clock Thursday night. We decided to grill some of the meat that we had in the freezer. I pulled out some frozen pork chops, corn on the cob and some red potatoes. I marinated the pork chops and wrapped the corn in foil with butter, salt and pepper and I wrapped the potatoes in foil with butter, garlic, salt and pepper. While the food was on the grill, I started to feel...well, awful. Once it was finished, I was feeling so badly that I didn't even want to eat. I ended up getting a stomach bug...NOT fun...especially not fun being sick all night without electricity.



Zack packed up the food in our refrigerator and took it to the little fridge at his office. Friday, Zack went to work and I stayed home to recooperate. I slept most of the day. That night I was on call and I had answered several calls when my phone was about to die. I was dreading having to sleep in my car while charging my phone. Just as I was thinking I would have to head out to the car, our power came back on.

Saturday, Zack started the clean up efforts on our yard. He borrowed a chainsaw from our friend Cliff and he got to work of cutting up the pine tree littering our back yard. He got most of it cut up before the chainsaw started stalling. Sunday we picked up some of the limbs and pine cones littering the yard...It is really still a work in progress.

While I am thankful that Zack and I made it through the storms with minimal damage, there are so many that were not that lucky. These storms that swept through the south have been devastating to so many and our hearts go out to the families that these storms have affected. I am looking forward to summer if for no other reason than to say good bye to these violent spring storms.