"Don't kill your family."
Aug. 30th, 2008 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
horizon_greenePhoenix endured the most unbelievable monsoon on Thursday night. I've lived in this city for nearly 20 years, and it was the worst I'd ever seen. People who have lived here far longer have expressed similar sentiments. It started out as simply an incredible electrical storm, with shafts of lightning cutting across the sky almost constantly, and from every direction. This lasted for about two hours, just sort of rumbling in slowly from the south and the east.
Then around 9pm all hell broke loose. It started to rain, and wind accompanied the moisture, with hurricane-force gusts up to 100mph. I was driving around shortly after the worst of the rain, and trees were down everywhere, in parking lots and streets and yards. When I drove home around 11pm, there were trees down on the freeway, and once I got off the freeway, there were trees and debris all over the surface streets. The electricity in the central corridor was out, so there were no streetlights—which was scary, as it was basically a stretch of several miles' worth of intermittently observed 4-way stops.
I made it home to find that luckily, the electricity to my block had already been restored. I cuddled with Simon, who'd had to endure most of the storm by himself, poor guy. I had the television on and suddenly the emergency alert system was activated, warning of more wind and recommending that everyone stay inside and away from windows for the next hour. So I got candles and matches organized as hail and wind pelted the windows, but fortunately the electricity stayed on and I was able to get ready for bed and go to sleep.
The city is still in tatters, though. It's not catastrophic, by any means, but so many trees are down, power lines are down, houses are damaged, my poor friend Tim hasn't had electricity for almost 36 hours in 106º, high humidity weather. It's weird, because I've just never seen a storm this severe.
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In other news, my grandma had surgery earlier this week; she was released from the hospital on Thursday and I've been going over to her place every day after work to help my mom out with her care. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadow_shimmer, remember when you were having dinner with my family and the sole topic of conversation was hip replacement? Well, it finallly came to pass after like, nearly a year!) She's been taking some pretty powerful narcotic painkillers, and she's just been kind of funny, the way most people get when they're that drugged. She's been coming up with all sorts of bizarre little pieces of advice, including, last night, the following recommendation: "Don't kill your family."
Duly noted, Grandma.
Then around 9pm all hell broke loose. It started to rain, and wind accompanied the moisture, with hurricane-force gusts up to 100mph. I was driving around shortly after the worst of the rain, and trees were down everywhere, in parking lots and streets and yards. When I drove home around 11pm, there were trees down on the freeway, and once I got off the freeway, there were trees and debris all over the surface streets. The electricity in the central corridor was out, so there were no streetlights—which was scary, as it was basically a stretch of several miles' worth of intermittently observed 4-way stops.
I made it home to find that luckily, the electricity to my block had already been restored. I cuddled with Simon, who'd had to endure most of the storm by himself, poor guy. I had the television on and suddenly the emergency alert system was activated, warning of more wind and recommending that everyone stay inside and away from windows for the next hour. So I got candles and matches organized as hail and wind pelted the windows, but fortunately the electricity stayed on and I was able to get ready for bed and go to sleep.
The city is still in tatters, though. It's not catastrophic, by any means, but so many trees are down, power lines are down, houses are damaged, my poor friend Tim hasn't had electricity for almost 36 hours in 106º, high humidity weather. It's weird, because I've just never seen a storm this severe.
---
In other news, my grandma had surgery earlier this week; she was released from the hospital on Thursday and I've been going over to her place every day after work to help my mom out with her care. (
shadow_shimmer, remember when you were having dinner with my family and the sole topic of conversation was hip replacement? Well, it finallly came to pass after like, nearly a year!) She's been taking some pretty powerful narcotic painkillers, and she's just been kind of funny, the way most people get when they're that drugged. She's been coming up with all sorts of bizarre little pieces of advice, including, last night, the following recommendation: "Don't kill your family."Duly noted, Grandma.
