Thunderstorm

Glad we're renting! The backyard has a small drainage issue/ pond today.


Tommy liked watching the water from the gutter flow over his foot - he was only allowed to do this when the flow was low - at high flow it would have washed him away!



Gutters are so fun!


This is the best I could get - there was police tape up because of live electrical wires. But you can see in the distance the fallen power pole - crushing a white SUV as it fell. This is about 500 feet from our house.


The next morning we watched them bring in the new power pole - they parked it in front of our house for a while.

We've been in the middle of a huge thunderstorm here in California. It has been the strangest storm. It will be like a hurricane for a few hours then completely clear up with blue skies for a while then return to the storm. It's done this like 10 times. The storm was so loud a couple nights ago that it kept waking up Josh. There have been small rivers flowing down our street towards the ocean.

Yesterday afternoon we lost power and then not too long afterwards heard several fire trucks go by. We went out to investigate and a tree had blown over and knocked down a power pole. The neighbors we saw down there said, "Oh great. Something similar happened last year and we had no power for 4 days." I started to worry about how we were going to keep the boys warm and fed if the power was out for that long. Dave stopped to get some firewood and my plan was to wait one day and then go to a hotel. But the power was back on in a few hours! I guess unlike last year, the damage (so far) from the storm was minimal so they could get to our power line fairly quickly. I think if losing power with every storm is the rule rather than the exception, we're going to have to look into getting a generator.

While the power was out and we were sitting around in the dark, I was thinking about the Haiti earthquake that happened about a week ago. I said to Dave, "Here I am, worrying and uncomfortable because we have no power for a few hours and yet at this very moment, there may be people alive, injured with a broken pelvis or femur, stuck under rubble with nothing to drink or eat for a week, wondering if they are about to die - and I'm complaining about no power." It certainly put things into perspective. I feel so bad for the poor Haitians - what a horrible tragedy.

Tommy, on the other hand, thinks not having power is great. He gets to run around with the flashlights and lanterns and had a blast making shadows on the wall with Dad!