Photos I took from local news broadcast on TV.
We have had violent storms, every single day, sometimes 3 of them a day, for 2 weeks.
in one evening , right at bed time, we had 1000 strikes in one storm.
NEED I REMIND you Big Boy is terrified of storms. YIKES
a few days ago, A man standing out side of a restaurant on Clearwater Beach, was struck and died 3 days later, 7 others standing with him were injured and burned.
Life guards cleared the beach, they chose to stand outside. Not Good Choice!
It is common here for people, cows, horses and homes to be struck during storms. We receive automated warning calls when one of these is headed for our location, much like the tornado warnings in other states.
THEY warn. If you can see it or hear the thunder it CAN hit you and it can go many miles.
Thursday at 7:55 I left home for my TOPS meeting and raced the coming storm to get there before it hit. I made it by 5 minutes, so did Mable.
We stood staring at the walk way closed with yellow tape and red signs that said Condemned building, do not enter. We could see tire tracks that ended in our door, with walls crumbled and the poles that had propped up the ceiling to the walkway.
Marge drove up, the three of us stood gaping at the damage and taking wild guesses as what happened to the building. The Storm Struck, KABOOM! and a flashflood of rain.
we Leapt ๐into Mable's Car.
We could not see out, the windows fogged from our breathing hard, the thunder rolled, the rain flooded.
Walking to the office was a NO, sense we were trapped in the car with raging bolts of lightning dropping from the sky... Marge read the phone number to the office, Mable dialed it and we got the fax machine. We decided the office was not open yet.
A half our later, we had called all the members and canceled the meeting and then decided to VERIFY the Phone Number. Aha! She had typed a 2 not a 3... The office answered.
We canceled for NO REASON! when they shored up the roof line, they moved our Cabinet into the main church building. There it sat, waiting for us to get brave enough to go inside.
IF I had gone inside instead of sitting in the car, we would have found we did not have to cancel the meeting.
The four of us decided to go find the cabinet. (did I mention during the storm, Sue arrived and was standing in the rain under her umbrella staring at the yellow tape, and had no idea we were all in Mable's car. remember the fogged windows?) Marge cracked her door and screamed Sue, Sue leapt ๐ in the car.
It was still raining when we decided to go inside and find the cabinet, as we walked around the building, .. I kept
screaming saying OUR UMBRELLAS ARE LIGHTNING RODS... We Survived but the meeting did not..... meanwhile when I got home...…………… To be continued