Monday, June 27, 2011

A Terrible Storm, A Blessing

A Terrible Storm blasted through our neighborhood last week leaving the citizens of my town 
without power for 2-3 days.  

My son and I had our dog in the car for a quick trip to the pet store and gas station.  By the time my gas tank was only half filled, the lightening streaks across the sky were intimidating.  

I quickly paid the attendant and headed for the safety of home.

One look at Toby, who is not afraid of storms at all, and I knew something terrible was fast approaching.  

By the grace of God, we made it home before the pouring rain, high winds, booming thunder and mass lightening bursts.

It was all over in about 15 minutes.  

.  The power went out a few minutes into the storm and stayed out for 48-72 hours.

We opened our front door to look outside and a humongous tree branch was half laying in the middle of the street and half laying on top of my neighbor's car.  It had shattered his back windshield and dented his trunk.

We took out our flashlights as did many of our neighbors and walked up and down the blocks and saw trees ripped from the ground and huge branches laying on power lines.

Here are a few pictures from around our neighborhood. 


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To have power down for any length of time in our day and age, feels as if we've been punished. 

No TV
No computer
No phones
No light

You forget how dependent you are on electricity and seem so lost without it at first.  

We did borrow a generator to hook up to our refrigerator but we still had to throw some food items out.  Every 2 hours we had to fill it with gasoline to keep it running... and it ran VERY loudly.  I'm sure our neighbors were just thrilled but we were one of many neighbors running them.

When our lights came back on, we all shouted for joy!  That felt like a blessing!

The quiet times with my son reading by candlelight or staying up talking with my husband and son, they were blessings too.  During the storm for a brief moment, if felt as if God's protective hand had been lifted and it was chaos.  I believe God's loving hand returned... reminding us that He is in control.  

By God's grace we were ok, no one was injured, we had minor inconveniences of having no power and having to clean up the branches and sticks that lay everywhere, and I had to be creative with meals and activities for the long dark hours we were awake.  That was all alright with me!

God Bless,
noreen

9 comments:

  1. Noreen,

    Oh dear! I'm glad that you, your family, and those in your community survived the storm. I'm sure being without power for a long time was a bit maddening. However, I am glad things are back to "normal" now, praise God! :)

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  2. Noreen, I am glad to hear you and your family are OK. No electricity: no computer, no blogging! We tend to take electricity for granted. Sounds like you went back to basics and enjoyed some of the simpler pleasures of life. I might have complained about the inconveniences but you saw the blessings. Beautiful post!

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  3. Thank God you and your family are okay. I think we all tend to glamorize "living like Laura Wilder", but the reality for today is much harder.

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  4. Oh my Gosh Noreen! Those were HUGE trees down! That must have been a Hellish storm! So so so glad you and your family were okay. And that it sounds like its all getting better.

    This summer has been just funky...Praying for our country, as I don't see God withholding this chastisement anytime soon...

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  5. oh my good ness, Noreen. those pictures tell it all. what a storm. it seems there have been so many like this around the nation this Spring and summer. We had a tree fall over during a storm recently, but nothing like the destruction you posted about. God bless!

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  6. Those pictures show it all. I'm glad you were all safe and power is back on!

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  7. Wow--that could have been REALLY bad. I'm glad all you lost were some tree branches and refrigerated food.

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  8. So glad you guys are all O.K. Very scary I'm sure! I think my kids would literally collapse if they didn't have something electronic....sigh.

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  9. Thank you for your support ladies! It was a bit like being a pioneer girl, Paula! I can't tell you how many times I walked into a room and reached for the light switch, forgetting again, that the power was off.

    Nancy- my son struggled with the loss of his computer and video games. My husband struggled most with the loss of TV and for me, good lighting for reading and the obvious - the computer :)

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