I hate tornadoes

[vonkaar]

We lost power for 6 hours last night... wind was blowing about as hard as I've ever seen it. Lightning crashing, huge booming thunder... hail... the works. Three different areas of my city had tornadoes form, but none of them made contact. I drove around my neighborhood and saw at least 4 fences knocked down, and easily 20 trees (oak, pine & poplars) that were either split in half, or completely knocked down. It was pretty crazy.

Part of my backyard:


This picture didn't come out as 'scary' as I thought it would be. I pulled most of that out of the pool... nearly 4 trees from my neighbor's trees. You can see all of the other branches hanging over. That was cut clean to about 20 feet up in the air, now it's hanging right on top of my shit. I have so much bullshit work to do... we were supposed to have a party this Saturday =/.

[brinstar]

technically it isn't a tornado if it doesn't make contact

[vonkaar]

that's true... so, they saw 'rotation' =p

[Darcler]

The rotation part of the storm petered out by the time it hit us further East, but I was watching it on the news. The tornados-that-never-were were kind of neat to watch. The power flashes were pretty. Like Fourth of July on the ground. Sorry about the junk in your pool. We lost our big trash bin. Nowhere to be found.

[vonkaar]

yeah, we didn't know about it at all... just sitting around talking & watching TV. Suddenly, the tornado alarm starts blaring (few miles from our house) so I flipped on channel8. Troy Duncan pointing at a map of Denton County saying, "Flower Mound is directly in the path... storms should be striking them right about..." -click- power is out. It was pretty trippy.

[brinstar]

you live in Flower Mound, TX?

[vonkaar]

Top ten cities in DFW, 3 years in a row

only one with a gay name 8(

[10sun]

Last tornado siren I heard... I was about 15 miles into a 20 mile canoe trip. I was like, "fuck".

Booked it back, some people ported their canoes the remaining 5 miles jogging, some people freaked out and capsized, and I raced to the take out b/c we had a shelter there. Pulled a few canoes out and some flew about 15 feet away, literally just picked up and flung by the winds. Got them all tied down and headed for the shelter... a biker bar. It was kind of comical and put a quick end to our planned camping trip.

[Drem]

brutal

[Harrison]

I have nightmares about tornadoes.

Fuck
That
Shit

[Hatak]

Luckily a tornado hasn't been through town here since 1991 which has really surprised me.

My wife's hometown got hit pretty hard by EF2/EF3 tornadoes about a month ago. Her family's places were okay but her mom's church got the roof taken off. The motel across the street from the church had the bricks sucked out of the middle of the walls. Their fairgrounds and electric coop plant was destroyed, and so on... It was pretty rough.

[brinstar]

though it was only an EF4, the tornado that wiped Hallam, NE off the map back in 2004 is believed to be the widest tornado ever recorded. 2.5 miles across! Hallam is 25 miles south of Lincoln, and as you can see from the trail in this picture it also went right by Bennet (upper right area) which is where one of my best friends lives

[vonkaar]

holy fuck ^

[Hatak]

It wasn't very close to here, but my wife remembers seeing the infamous May 3rd, 1999 tornado that ran along I-44 from Chickasha, OK to OKC. It had the highest wind speeds ever recorded for a tornado and at one time they considered making an EF6 rating on the scale for it. That was an awesome tornado and the damage was tremendous.

Sometimes I would like to be a storm chaser. I couldn't imagine being those guys that drive that TIV truck directly into the path though. That'd be crazy.

[brinstar]

there are classes you can take to become an official storm spotter and get that cool little SkyWatch sticker for your vehicle

i am thinking of doing that

[Hatak]

Cool, I might have to look into that!

[Darcler]

I'm scared of storms. Terrified really. When there were thunderstorms at night, I would sneak into my parents room and sleep on the floor by my moms side of the bed until an embarrassingly old age. I figured that if something swept us up, it would take all of us.
In my head, thunderstorms = TORNADOS ARE A-COMIN'!
We had to run to the car twice when I was little when my dad played baseball because there were funnel clouds dropping a few miles away. Had one form right above us when I was at an amusement park in Lubbock. I dont deal well with storms now.
Now when there is a storm at night, I stay awake. I try to pass it off as I am staying awake so I can hear when my daughter cries when there is loud thunder, but it's really so I dont miss storm sirens, as they arent as close to our house as I like.

[/embarrassing confessions off]

[Dimuza]

I love that the picture you posted to describe the horrific ordeal looks like domestic bliss to me.

[vonkaar]

Well, that pile of trees is a lot more impressive in person =p... and it fucking sucked pulling all of that out of the pool.

[brinstar]

my pseudo-ex- was at a rockies game in denver a few days ago, check it out

[Drem]

I love that the picture you posted to describe the horrific ordeal looks like domestic bliss to me.

lol

wtb a "before" pic

[vonkaar]

Hmm... this is the only 'before' shot I can find...



ignore the gay stars above the patio... this picture was right when we bought the house and the previous owners left them.

[Narrock]

Nice crib, Vonk. Here's a suggestion for your pool: Get rid of the floating chlorine tablet basket, and just put 2 chlorine tablets in your leaf basket. When the cleaning pump comes on, the water will rush past the tablets in the basket and disperse chlorine all over your pool. You will NEVER get algae (not that it looks like you have an algae problem... just a tip for the future). My parents had the same floating basket as you have for a while, but they would still get algae growing on the sides of the pool on 100-degree days, even with 4 or 5 tablets in the basket. They switched to the Mindia method and Voila! No more algae. True story. With this method you will use about 4 tablets a week, and it will utilize the entire tablet. When you use the floating chlorine tablet basket, and load it up with 4 or 5 tablets, after a couple days the tablets meld together and it looks sort of like a spinal column, and doesn't dissolve completely.

[vonkaar]

I only use that floatre to distribute shock... not for tablets. The pool needed to be shocked like mad after I pulled those trees out of it. I keep the pucks in the skimmer baskets like you say =).