Saturday, November 7, 2009

"Oh, What A Night"

WOW! It was a doozy of a storm! 

Last night, just before midnight, the rain began. To say it was raining was like saying the Grand Canyon is a nice valley. Just when it seemed that the rain could not get any heavier...that no way could the air hold any more water droplets! and then the rain would ratchet up another notch! Within minutes, the ground surrounding our house was flooded.

Soon after the precipitation started, the lightening/thunder show began. We were at the epicenter last night, with several booms hitting at the same time as the flash. Lightening lit up the sky continually for an hour, often within seconds of the last bolt. It was wild. Now if you are a person who was raised in the Midwest U.S., this storm may have been "normal" for you; but for us native Californians, it was crazy. I am getting braver about the storms (the choice was get used to it or go totally insane!), but this storm was in the "Top Ten Storms That Can Freak You Out".

At one point, the main generator cut out and the whole village went dark. (Well, as dark as it gets with lightening bursting all around. It was like a crazy black light show!)  The generator is wired to a GFI. For those of you who are not technologically in the know, that means Ground Fault Interrupters. I personally have had this explained to me several times, and still do not understand! But apparently, last night there was a lightening strike close enough somewhere to cause the switch in the generator to know that for it's very survival, it had better shut down NOW or be fried.

One of us bravely ventured out into the wet, saturating night to re-start the generator in order to restore power to the security lights while the other one of us stayed inside, nice and dry (one of the perks of being technologically ignorant!) The storm raged overhead for an hour before slowly moving to the west. What a night!

I asked the children at breakfast this morning if the storm was scary. Most of them slept right through it! Lucky kids.

Wishing you a pleasant, dry day, with no interruptions to your "current" (electricity).
Love, Babs