Powerless

Things which are unnerving:

• Tornado sirens at 12:30 in the morning
• Abrupt silence of tornado sirens before the storm passes
• Power failure two minutes after tornado siren failure
• The sound of your house creaking during especially vicious gusts of wind
• A loud crash coming from your backyard while the wind is roaring

Things which are uncomfortable:

• Sitting in a small hallway with 3 other people
• Propping up a futon mattress while consoling a four year old and a 14 month old who would much rather be in their beds
• Sleeping with a four year old who is unnerved enough that she wants to share a pillow with her mother
• Looking out your window and watching the gawkers driving down your street
• Going 38 hours without electricity

Things which are annoying:

• @#(*&$ alarm systems that have a backup battery good for 28 hours and announce that fact by setting off the alarm at 4:30 in the morning the day after power was lost
• Husbands who can sleep through above alarm for the 45 minutes it took to figure out where the battery was and yank it out of the wall
• Electric companies that cannot give an estimate for when power will be back on over the phone to a paying customer but will make such an announcement on the evening news
• Losing an entire refrigerator and deep freeze’s contents because the power was out just a tiny bit too long

We had extremely nasty weather in the wee hours of Saturday morning. There has been a lot of damage in our little town, but our house seems to be spared. We’re still not sure about the roof, though. None of our shingles are missing, but who knows if they’re still any good after being pummeled by wind and hail. Our basketball goal snapped off at the base, and we have some damage to our privacy fence. We were very, very, very lucky.

M.W.