Day 9

Our day was planned to be a restful day beginning with play time with puppies and ending with an evening of watching movies. The day began just as planned.

The puppies took a good deal of our time during the day. They are getting to a stage where they are beginning to play with each other and engage in play fighting. It is fun to watch because, at a little less than four weeks of age, the puppies are still a little shaky when they walk. Add to that the unexpected shoving and pulling while playing and there are funny tumbles that take place. With the world being new to the puppies they are always finding new mischief to get into.

Puppies "R" Us

In the late afternoon dark clouds began to move in from the northwest. At first the cloud formations didn't look very unusual, however, as we watched, the clouds began to take the classic shape of a thunderstorm. We ended up having a storm of all storms.

I've often said that I enjoy the thunder storms in Kansas. I've also said that I like exciting weather, not scary weather. Well, last night the weather went from exciting to just over the edge of scary. We had a lightening display like I've never seen and it lasted for hours.

The boomers are coming our way

There were many lightening strikes from cloud to ground that lasted for the longest time period I've ever seen. Usually a lightening bolt will flash very quickly and sometimes a bolt may repeat the same path two or more times. The lightening strokes in this storm flashed down a path that remained frozen in the sky for a few seconds. The length of time was long enough for me to see the bolt of lightening, bring my camera around and take a picture. The thunder that resulted was tremendous, so loud that the house shook and the windows rattled. But, there was something I don't recall from my previous experiences, the ground shook somewhat like a mild earthquake.

A long lasting lightening bolt with very LOUD thunder

This all began well before sunset so that we were able to see the cloud formations to the west of us. A classic wall cloud formed which is the precursor to a tornado. The wall cloud rolled and the clouds began to swell as if a funnel cloud was about to form only a few blocks away. However, it never quite developed. It was a tense time for us all.

There were winds, measured out west of us, that gusted to over 100 mph. Cheney Reservoir was hit really hard. The marina was destroyed as the boat storage buildings and most of the boats were blown apart with the boats being flipped and capsized. One houseboat was capsized with people aboard and divers were dispatched to try to find any victims. We saw a story on TV that showed a 5th wheel trailer the was upside down and a motorhome like ours that had the windshield blown out by flying debris.

TV storm coverage — storm coming from Northwest — we are at the X

A tree in Jim's yard was blown so hard that the trunk snapped off at ground level while the next door neighbors had a large branch on their tree broken of by the wind. Kay and I had become concerned about our motorhome because it was parked west of Jim and Donna's place which put it closer to the storm center.

Jim borrowed Steven's pickup truck, which is higher off the ground, to take me out to check on the motorhome. We had to change the way we were going to avoid flooded streets and possible downed power lines. Jim found a way to get to the RV campground that got us around the problems.

The area around the RV campground was experiencing a power failure, so the campground was dark. As it turned out, our motorhome was just fine. The windshield sunscreen had been blown loose on one corner. I turned off the circuit breaker and went inside to turn off the air conditioners. I wanted to try to protect our motorhome from a possible power surge when the power came back on.

Jim and I returned to his house using a different route than the one used to get to the motorhome. I think Jim wanted to see if there was any other damage. We found it. A four lane street had been reduced to one lane by a large tree branch that had been blown over the road. Fortunately for us, the one open lane was in the direction we were going. Just as we passed the tree branch a fire truck was arriving with equipment that could remove the obstruction from the road.

When we got back to the house, the worst of the storm was past us, so we settled in to watch a movie. Our plan had been to watch a couple of movies, however, watching the storm took time away from our planned activities. A movie was finally started a bit late and all during the movie lightening flashed on all sides of the house lighting up the windows. I think this was the longest lasting lightening storm I've seen.

The movie was over at midnight, so home we went with lightening flashing around us all the way to our motorhome. Kay and I were up until 2 o'clock in the morning watching the storm. It was truly awesome.

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