It was a gorgeous early summer day--When I drove home from an out of town meeting at 2pm, I could see those tall fluffy clouds hanging over the mountains. Usually they stay there, and if there is a storm, its in the mountains, never moves into the valley where we are.
Within an hour it was getting mighty cloudy and dark. I figured I would pull up the local weather radar--holy crap--the map was yellow and bright red just to the south of us, with severe thunderstorm warnings posted for 70mph damaging winds. I shut the computer down, turned on the local news, grabbed the step ladder and pulled the hanging flower baskets, and the flag down. 5 minutes later, back in the house, now the emergency broadcast is sounding with TORNADO warnings for my city directly in the path!! Folks, we DON'T have TORNADO'S here!!
I didn't even know what to do, so trying not to panic--I listened to what they said to do, and got under our big Victorian king bed. I see these two ears perk up--well the cat was already there--she knew where to be. With cell phone in hand, I was calling all the family in town.
The cat and I spent 15 scary minutes under that bed with the loudest wind I had ever heard in my 56 years. When I heard the wind quiet a bit I ventured out to a torrential downpour for at least 15 minutes.
It is estimated that we have about 2 inches of rain--that is about what we get all summer. The power was out for about an hour, and the bigger cities to the east and north of us Salem and Portland suffered power and flooding issues too.
I know this seems like OMG, we have that all the time in our part of the country, but try to compare it with snow in Hawaii--this stuff doesn't happen here!
I uploaded this pic from the local newspaper as I was just too scared to even pick my camera...
