(written on the 28th and 29th)
For those of you who might be concerned about my well being, first, thanks for being concerned.
Second, we’re good over here. 👍
How are you? 🙂
We got the tornado warning blaring on our phones maybe about 1 a.m., or so. I don’t remember for sure what time.
I went downstairs and knocked on my mom’s door to make sure she got the message. She did, and we both then headed to the front porch to take in the storm. 🙃
I’m a sucker for violent weather. 😁
This storm was a bit more… sobering, though, in the end.
At our place, we got rain, and some pretty good wind and 1 inch hail–the hail being mixed in with rain, much more rain than hail, so damage was at a minimum.
The power went out about 2 a.m. while we were sitting on the porch–the sky lit up by lightning, the thunder continuous without pause, possibly for hours.
I do really enjoy my Arkansas thunderstorms. 😊
Around 2:30 or 2:45 or whatever it was, we headed inside to go back to bed, as the most violent part of the storm had already passed for us, and it was just raining at that point.
After the power went out, our cell coverage went out not too long after.
Beefy storm to take out cell service as well. Still didn’t know about how bad it had been for others, though.
My first thought about the storm, before I knew the extent of it, was that it was a bit of a trip–no power, no cell service. No connection to the outside world.
It’s amazing how accustomed, and even dependent I am to being connected to the larger world.
I didn’t find out about the tornados until the next afternoon. I’d gone to bed late, of course, and I’d slept in until 1:30 ish.
😅
First thing I did was get our own generator started. Then I headed over to Liz’s place to help her get her generator going, but she was completely out of propane, so while it literally ran on fumes, both 1000 gallon tanks reasons zero, Jim and I worked to get a portable generator working, so we could keep her fridges and freezers going.
It was at Liz’s that I learned that there had been a tornado–multiple tornados. At first, I learned that there had been a tornado in Rogers that did a bunch of damage and had killed at least one person.
Over the next couple of days, I would learn more.
Apparently, the tornado hopped up and down, as I’ve been told, at least, touching down first over by Decatur. After a little while on the ground, it decided to bounce back skyward for a bit before touching down again in Bentonville.
It did massive damage in Bentonville, or so I’ve heard.
Gratefully, once again it headed for the heavens before touching down for a third time in Rogers, doing a bunch more damage to homes and businesses on and near the main road through town.
Sadly, as I was told later, at least two people died from this one, and many more died in other tornados during the massive outbreak that rocked the Midwest from north to south.
In comparison, we got it easy.
I spent the day Sunday working to get everyone set up for the power outage, getting generators going, etc.
Jim and I had some difficulties getting the portable generator set up for Liz, losing a bolt and spring, temporarily, And I managed to break a little chunk of metal off the carburetor for the the generator. Gratefully, even though it was a piece of metal that holds the float bowl pin in, it was still able to function.
🥳
After getting everything set up for Liz, I went home and got my skid steer, and started cleaning up the flooding damage to our road. There was rock and gravel all over the grass and fields, so I set about scooping it all up and filling in the ruts and ditches carved out by the sheer volume of water.
I scooped and scooped and scraped and scraped until I had most of the rock off Liz’s grass, enough that it could reasonably be mowed, I think.
As I was working, I noticed that as I raised the bucket on the skid steer, it was starting to shake a little bit, like it was having trouble going up. I knew that I had a leak in one of the main cylinders, but I didn’t think too much about it. When I saw that the skid steer was having trouble raising the bucket, I just figured that I was a little low on fluid from having leaked a little too much out.
If only. 😅
I parked the skid steer, got out, started walking away, but heard hissing sound. I followed the sound and found that the opposite cylinder was gushing out hydraulic fluid. Not only that, but there was hydraulic fluid all over the inside of the engine bay, all over the top of the skid steer–everywhere.
😶
That is such a huge huge huge fire hazard. I’m lucky and very grateful that the skid steer didn’t burn to the ground.
🙏
It started raining again just as the skid steer bit the dust. At first, it was just a little rain, and then a lot of rain, and then the wind kicked up, and then the wind really kicked up.
I was standing under a tree taking a leak when the wind blew so hard that I wondered if maybe there was another tornado right on top of us, a tree a couple hundred ft from where I was standing snapped in half.
I figured it was about time to finish peeing, but you can’t rush those things. 😅
I ended up completely soaked from head to toe, but fortunately not in my own pee. 😆
I walked home in the rain, enjoying the pounding rain, until the pounding got a little more pounding because the hail started coming again. 🙃 So I covered my head with my water jug, I think it was, and ran the rest of the way home trying to avoid what I think probably maxed out at 3/4 of an inch hell this time.
Instead of weirdly shaped pieces of hell, this time what I saw was super round.
Pretty cool. 😊
After the rain let up, and I saw that some of the work that I had done with the skid steer had already been undone, but with no more skid steer to do anything about it, made sure everything was good for Liz and company, and then I headed over to neighbor Joe’s to see how he was faring.
He didn’t have a generator running to keep his fridge and freezer going, but he said he had one in his storage unit, so I pushed him to take a ride into town to get his generator out of the box. I told him I was going to go around the hill again to see what I could do to help. Ramona’s dogs got out right before the most recent storm that knocked over more trees. There were many people walking around the property trying to find the dogs. They’re just little schnauzers or whatever they are, but we’ve got enough coyotes and bobcats and mountain lions and what not, not to mention large red-shouldered Hawks and even bald eagles… And some pretty huge owls as well.
Lots of critters ready to make a meal out of smaller dogs.
I wandered around as one of many wandering the property looking for them, but to no avail.
😞
I went over to neighbor Dan’s to see how they were faring, and he was doing just fine. He was out barbecuing with his propane grill.
I love, so much, living out in the country. I’ll never be able to do a neighborhood ever again.
Neighbor Joe came driving up to Liz’s house while I was there, ready to go get the generator that I had volunteered to help him get. So we went over to Rogers, passing by some of the destruction from the storms, fence is blown over, trees blown over, etc. And that was farther away from the tornado area part of Rogers.
We grabbed his generator, drove back to his place, got it all set up, and got his refrigerator and freezer plugged into them.
🥳
By the end of the day, we were all pretty much set, food safe, and just riding out the storm.
Ramona’s dogs were still missing, so I drove around about midnight in my Civic along the dirt roads that are nearby our property. I drove into Pea Ridge and got gas from the Walmart Neighborhood Market that amazingly and gratefully had power.
No dice finding the dogs on the drive back as well…
😞
Aside from Ramona’s dogs getting out and disappearing, and aside from my skid steer going down, we did remarkably well on a day when many lost their homes and businesses, and some list their lives.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 