We Were Smacked Down!

The storm that hit Olympia Street on September, 20th 2007 in Golden Valley, is recalled by local residents as the worst in 40+ years. The local news stations covered the devastation poorly. Had Keith Marler (our favorite local Meteorologist and fellow sci-fi nut) not been on vacation, I’m sure he would have covered Golden Valley! More than 20,000 Minnesotans are without power as I write this and we’re on generator power with a power line down in our back yard.

Last night Heather called me inquiring as to whether or not I was hearing “the sirens”. I was not. However, I had seen some big drops and decided to move my SUV into the garage. As I was talking with Heather I suddenly realized I could hear them off in the distance–and then the hail began. I said to Heather, “There is hail…” and we were suddenly cut off from each other. I wouldn’t hear from Heather for another 20 minutes.

VOIP Phones were dead. Cell phones were dead with the message “Radio path could not be reached…” For the first time as a homeowner I was actually scared of a storm.

We were hit with wave after wave of straight line winds and hail from both directions. During a moment of calm, I wrangled the cat up and we hunkered down in the basement. After the third wave I went outside and saw swirling winds–no single direction for any cloud movement. It was a giant swirling mass. Heather got caught in the middle of the storm in her car. She was scared to death and quite emotional when I finally was able to reach her by cell phone again. I watched and waited and manually opened the garage door so we could get her inside as soon as humanly possible.

It was a heck of a storm.

This morning Heather and I grabbed cameras and headed out the door to survey the damage. Here is the link to the aftermath photos I took this morning.

Matt Sparby, my long time friend and neighbor to Heather and I, also lives on Olympia Street. He took photos and blogged as well. Here is his account. He was an integral part in helping us recover power with a new generator that I bought from Home Depot. There is a story about that too. But I’ll save it for a little later…