Z Words: Extra Edition: And then this happened...
& messed up ALL the planning!
Friday. Bastille Day, 2023 (July 14th)
It was hot. And Oscar, my son was worried about the possibility of severe weather.
And when Oscar worries about the weather, he really worries!
By 3pm, it looked like the day was fading.
by 3:30 the the wind whipped up to 70 miles an hour and hail pelted the earth.
As a blinding rain fell sideways, more wind. The trees shook and writhed like they wanted to leave the earth.
And when they did, they closed down streets and knocked down power lines.
Our lights flickered. Once. Twice. Three or four times... and by 4:30 in the afternoon, we'd lost power completely.
Oscar had lost power. I drove around to get him some batteries and as I drove around I avoided power lines down, trucks repairing them, and tree damage everywhere.
A few stores bustled with business. Walmart’s parking lot was full. McDonald’s was hopping. And so was Quik Trip. The Price Chopper’s parking lot was empty; the store was dark.
Now Scott and I had lived through power outages before. Ice storms, thunderstorms, and in the days when we worked in offices or anywhere that wasn’t our home, we’d just go to work, cool off or warm up and come back home and hopefully we’d soon be up and running again.
Often we were. No need for more than the two lanterns and small flashlights we had… a rechargeable USB battery… just one.
But we worked from home now. And our devices were losing power. We could charge our phones from our laptops, but that would last only as long as our laptops held out.
And the air, sultry and sticky as you’d expect in July, coated our skin. Even though we bathed in cool water, and opened what windows we could, our upstairs bedroom was too darn hot. And not in a sexy way.
And not funny, like “Some Like It Hot.”
And now a request…
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…And back to the rest of the story…
We were lucky. We were without power for only 48 hours. The older I get and the more severe weather we have, I know we run the risk of enduring more destructive storms and longer times for power restoration.
I’m not a climate scientist, but I believe what they say. I am linking to a page of reports by the Environmental Protection Agency:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate
Also, a minute by minute account of what our severe storm was doing. As you scroll down, you’ll see a tab for Radar and one for Storm Reports. Enjoy looking at both!
https://www.weather.gov/eax/July142023WindStormThroughKansasCity
And for an accessible discussion of climate change on Substack, read Melanie Newfield’s The Turnstone. She writes about New Zealand but I think U.S. audiences will benefit from and enjoy this incisive and thoughtful blog.