QotD: A June storm in rural Illinois

nobody@vox.com(hp) — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 07:01:24 -0700

What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?

It was about 10 years ago - in the month of June - we were visiting Drake's folks in rural west-central Illinois. Drake and his Dad (Jim) were working in the pasture; my mother-in-law (Lorna) and I were at the house. Lorna had the radio on so we knew that some nearby counties were under a tornado watch. But the weather looked fine were we were. I could see, however, some stormy clouds off into the distance. Since we almost never get storms in Seattle, I pulled a lawn chair into the yard and decided to watched the clouds for a while. Meanwhile, Lorna went off to pick some raspberries.

As I watched the sky, I realized that pitch-dark clouds now seemed to be moving our direction. I looked around for Lorna, but she was nowhere in sight. I looked at the sky again; the clouds were clearly racing towards us. I decided to go into the house to check what the radio was saying, but as I came inside, the electricity went off.

I looked back outside. It was now extremely dark. Wild-looking clouds were quickly coming closer and the wind was coming up fast. Harder. Unbelievably, there I was on the front porch yelling "Lorna! Lorna!" - I felt like I was in the Wizard of Oz. And of course, I had no idea what circumstances Drake and his Dad were in at the pasture.

Finally I saw Lorna, running towards the house against the wind. By the time we both got into the house it the wind was making the house creak ominously. At this point, I thought we might lose the house. We hunkered down in the basement.

The storm damage was widespread, but thankfully limited to downed trees and powerlines. Drake and his Dad had ridden out the storm in Jim's truck - which they knew was not the best place to be in case of a tornado - but they really didn't have any other options.

That night, we ate out of cans and played cards by candlelight. It was a day and a half before we got power back. On the farm, that means no water either. But Jim, a volunteer fire fighter, had a new generator he wanted to "test" at the fire station. So the next day we all took generator-powered showers.

Jim and Lorna still talk about that storm. In all their years on the farm, they had never seen anything come up that fast.

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QotD: A June storm in rural Illinois