I was watching the game on ESPN last night after they came back from the first rain delay. I was amazed at the non-stop thunder you could hear over the air, and the audible fan reaction every time there was a lightning strike. They kept showing shots of the players and umpires looking up anxiously between pitches in the 8th inning.
And then the signal went dead for a few seconds, and you just knew they’d been hit close. When the picture came back, one of the players had sprinted off the field straight into the dugout, and then the umpires called the game. ESPN replayed one of the camera angles, and it looked like the lightning strike had hit one of the flag poles out in center field. Whoever ran into the dugout, I don’t blame him one bit.
We were in the middle of dinner last night when the storms came through Elgin. My girlfriend looks out the window behind me and says “Wow, look at the tree!”
One of the small trees in our townhouse’s common area was literally blowing sideways in the wind. Then the Cubs game conked out and we got the Black Screen of Tornado Warning on the TV. My sweetie looks back and me and says those words that every man wants to hear during a tornado warning…
“I think our homeowners insurance isn’t paid up”
So instead of seeking shelter in our utility room downstairs, I sprinted upstairs to make the homeowners insurance payment online. By the time I’d accomplished that the storm as mostly past us, so I fixed a good stiff drink and went out on the porch to watch the rest of the show. After two cigarettes and two fingers of Rip Van Winkle I went back inside and watched a frequently interrupted Anthony Bourdain episode. Fell asleep before the Cubs came back on.
I was outside in Lincoln Park when the worst of it hit. It was a pretty dangerous situation. There’s a high-rise construction going up just south of North avenue and a bunch of huge sheets of building material were flying off and swirling around the 40th floor or so. They ended up flying right at us on the side walk about a half mile from the site. We had to take cover in be corner of an entry way and we had bricks, glass and plastic swirling and shattering around us. I got a bunch of small cuts and scratches all over my body. We couldn’t retreat home or anywhere until the worst of the wind and debris passed. Once home we had to shower to get all the grit and debris off our skin and out of our hair. I’ve been in 2 tornadoes but this is the first time I was stuck outdoors in that type of wind, probably should have heeded those sirens when they went off and gotten indoors sooner.
We walked around some late last night and there are literally hundreds of large branches down and cars damaged on the side streets and many roads were blocked entirely. Exciting stuff.
I’m so sorry, I looked at the watermarks on the floor and put the boxes well past any I could see. I remember thinking I should stack everything on top of the plastic boxes but you mentioned the lids cracking. I was going to put them on top anyways but forgot. Curse my lazy and hungry distracted ass!
That was quite a storm(s) last night. The first one to move through around 9 pm was a doozy–lots of tree limbs down. It lasted about an hour (but the 80 mph winds didn’t, thank god). The second storm woke us out of bed at 0100 and kept pouring/thundering/lightning until about 3 or so. Over 2 inches of rain, tree limbs everywhere this morning. The tornado siren went off twice last night, and again this morning but this morning’s was just the monthly test.
sun is shining now and it’s hotter than hell out there and feels like a wet sponge. I hate August (except for the thunderstorms).
Yeah, it was just a communication error, and luckily only a few boxes were fucked. Furthermore, everything important was either upstairs or in a plastic bin.
In the end, my rollerblades, the tent, a fuck-ton of clothing, some books, my one nice pair of shoes and miscellaneous crap got it. Clothing is being washed now, and the books and blades and the shoes are out in the sun sort of airing out now. The tent turned out to just be the tent box.
Anyway, it should be fine, but you bet your ass I’m considering another storage unit. Not that I want to move all my damn stuff. Again.
Tell you what, how about I build a platform to hold it up off the ground along the north wall? Easy enough, maybe $25 bucks worth of material will make it effectively flood proof.
I was looking at the NWS radar. On the regular radar I saw a comma/hook shape on the north side of the storm, indicating the possibility of a tornado.
On the storm relative velocity radar, generally the windward side of the radar is red and the lee is green. An unmistakable sign of a tornado is a dot of red in the green or vice versa. As the storm moved in, about half of the red side became green! I thought “superstorm???” Of course there wasn’t one, and I’m currently trying to find out what produced the radar.
The weatherman on ABC7 said because we have more information, we’re going to receive more scary warnings. Well, the radar itself scared me.