A Major Wind Event

A quick post on our exciting week.  

In the 11 months, 3 weeks that Jeffery's been alive....he has already lived through some....interesting....weather and natural phenomenon.  There was the haboob that occurred in AZ (no where close to us) but on the day he was born!  There was the earthquake before he was 2 months old.  The Tropical Storm that we were fortunately in AZ during but still...  There were 2 Nor'Easters.  There weren't any crippling snow storms this year (don't laugh you midwesterners!) but Jeffery's first year has been exciting.

A seasoned pro at weather and natural disasters

 And then there was this week.  It was a normal day at the Pedersen house.  It was hot and humid.  Jeffery got a bath and then we settled down for lunch.

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi.  You're my only hope."

 I realized something was interesting when the National Weather Service kept interrupting Jeffery's "Dinosaur Train" episode.  Being obsessed with weather, I immediately turned the channel to the Weather Channel but they were too busy reporting on Tropical Storm Debby to care about VA.  And then the announcement came that we were under a tornado warning....the bad one.  Normally, we pay attention to radar and further announcements but don't do much else.  But when the clouds above were a purple black....when the rain was SO hard that I couldn't see my car parked outside no more than 30 feet away....when the wind was strong that trees across the street were going sideways...I got Jeffery and looked out the window and up at the clouds.  They were swirling above our street.  There was cloud rotation above my street.  Yikes!  So, I gathered all the pillows I could find in the house and we went and took cover in our bathtub.

This is fun mom!  Why aren't you laughing?!

I am pretty sure Jeffery thought it was all a game.  :)  He had his BoBo monkey and his sleepy dog and he kept flinging himself on all the pillows and laughing....while my heart was racing.  To be honest, I didn't think we were in trouble because of a tornado.  I was more concerned....MUCH more concerned....about the huge trees around our house and the possibility of them crashing through our house.  We emerged 30 minutes later when I could see sun shining and everything at our house was fine.  We didn't even lose power for more than a minute.  Others were not as lucky.  We have several friends who were without power into the following day. Several roofs to both homes and buildings around our larger neighborhood were completely torn off.  And trees throughout our section of the city are through cars and homes.

It was a NASTY storm....one that everyone is still talking about.  And it followed Interstate 64 from just to the west of Richmond all the way to Virginia Beach.  From all accounts, our little county of western Henrico and the county of Hanover (to the north of us) got the brunt of the storm but it was wicked wherever you were.  While there was a tornado that did touch the ground to the west of us....officials are calling what we experienced a "Major Wind Event".  30+ minutes of 70mph winds...yeah...I would call that "major".

My mom took the opportunity (when I called her and my dad as they were on their way to Santa Fe, NM to let her know) to inform me that the weather is much more boring in AZ and that she thinks we've had enough excitement and should move back.  :)  :)  I used to think that I would become a Storm Chaser.  I have since realized that I don't have the stomach or the heart for it.