Another interruption...

My hometown got hit by a derecho or "inland hurricane" yesterday?!? Everyone was pinging like crazy about it online, but nothing showed up late last night on our hometown paper's website -- not a good sign -- but notes elsewhere indicated that a tornado had touched down within miles of our farm. You don't generally want to read about the little towns you drove through all the time in national news, it's just never a good thing. The lack of news was weirder, though -- and it turns out that was because power was out and there was a curfew imposed at home, and everything's a mess.

Any big thunderstorm would send me packing to the basement with a battery-powered radio, jug of water, and blanket when I was a kid (I somehow registered disaster preparedness very deeply), and there were always big storms coming through and taking out trees, knocking out power. Every few years something would sweep over a town, and I remember seeing storm damage when I was little*, a particular hotel that was hit and never quite fixed. It leaves an impression. I once practically ducked-and-covered when Kolz and I heard a siren (that turned out to be the siren summoning volunteer firemen) on a road trip once. You don't mess with the big green-bellied storms, kids!

But it is weird weird weird to see the names of the little towns where our family friends live, and then my town, in an AP wire story. And it did hit places I know, though I haven't been back in years now. It's weird to imagine my dad's office with the roof ripped up (what does my school look like? our trees?), but it wasn't twister-level demolition, I don't think; Dad is down checking things out coincidentally today. It really did worry me to read little snippets about it last night, so little information, but worse this morning to find out that Carbondale got smacked...and then better to find out that everyone's pretty much alright and cleaning up. Strange.



* I'm pretty sure this is the storm people talked about happening when I was very, very small.