Well, not entirely off-line, since the office is back up and running now, but certainly off-topic. I don't know that it made the news much outside this area, but Memphis and the surrounding region experienced a pretty freak storm Tuesday morning. Heavy rain and straight-line winds that were reportedly between 60 to 100 MPH (sustained, not gusts), with pretty much no warning. Sort of an unannounced inland hurricane. Power went out at the gonk homestead at almost exactly 7:00 that morning, accompanied by lots of wind and rain. By the time we left the house to check on my office and some family around 8:00 or 8:30 the sun was already coming out, but there were over 300,000 homes and businesses without power. There are still around 190,000 out. It's pretty crazy. The stop light manufacturer is back-ordered -- there were 700 or 800 lights damaged, many of them ripped to pieces. The only bright spots have been that there were few injuries or deaths (although there have now been four deaths linked to the storm) and that the same cold front that caused it all has lingered for a few days of completely un-seasonal cool weather.

I've taken a few pictures (missed some really startling ones -- like the manhole embedded in the roots of a fallen tree -- because the camera was at home) and finally got them off the camera today -- they are here . Thankfully, the gonk family is unharmed, albeit a little warm and still flipping light switches occasionally, and I'll be around some during the work days, but not on weekends or evenings until probably some time next week.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

Glad to hear everyone is well...we had a freak storm like that in few years ago but with a Canadian flavour...Ice Storm. There was enough ice and wind that powerlines snapped from the weight, people were without power for up to a month (frozen ground, icy roads make for hard repairs). Best of luck, I hope your Outlaw Equipment survived well too!

Gonk,

Can't you design some duct-work to channel that stuff around your house?! Seriously, glad no one was hurt.

BTW, here in Oklahoma, we don't call it an "inland hurricane"--we call it "spring."

Oaf -- we actually had an ice storm here, too, back in '94. It took up to two or three weeks to restore power everywhere that time. I missed that storm, since I was at college at the time (about three hours south of here).

michaelstano -- not a bad idea, but the seismic bracing is a bit of a stumper. We were joking late Tuesday about the fact that the sirens never went off -- there was never any rotation in the storm, no tornado in sight, so no tornado watches or warnings. Just some wind...

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited July 25, 2003).]

We've been having some freaky storms here in Ohio lately. being near Cleveland, we catch some strong lake Erie effects. Some Tornados touched down in a city nearby..and the winds themselves are just brutal.

I have never in 29 years, heard such deafening thunder as I have this summer.

Good to know everything turned out alright gonk

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Play it LoUd!!

Electricity is a wonderful thing. It'll be even more wonderful when I have it at home again.

Still out of luck at home, and the weekend brought back the typical Memphis summer weather (mid-90's). No word on when to expect power back, but I've got a feeling that it'll be late this week at the earliest. I just bought the next-to-last generator that Home Depot had (still stinging a bit from the cost, but it's probably a good thing to have anyway this close to a fault line). Going to have box fans, lights, refrigerator, microwave, and probably the small TV tonight.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

Electricity is a wonderful thing

Do you still find yourself moving through rooms after dark trying to flip a switch occasionally?...its amazing how ingrained....

..a bottle of wine, candles....Oh ! but hard to make the most of the pre-edison, when its that hot..modern homes are not built to make the most of cross breezes.

.....Gonk, seriously, I'm so sorry what a mess...impressive pictures...it's humbleing when Mother Nature says,,,,you just think you have it all controlled!

Heh-heh. For some reason, the bathroom light switch is the one that none of us can quit trying. And for some reason, I keep staring at the remote (an MX-500) and wondering why its LCD display is working -- as if it would realize that all the devices it controls are powerless and go blank in sympathy...

The local paper reported that the death toll has risen to seven now, from a combination of tree falls, a fire, and carbon monoxide from generators. The power company has about 81,000 customers left to restore (originally 305,000 or 306,000 out a week ago), but the progress will be slower from here on out. I'm pretty sure our house will be out for the rest of the week, but my sister-in-law's apartment got power back around 8:00 last night (and we promptly returned her cats to her, along with ours as well) and my father-in-law's house got it back around 6:30 (although a transformer blew around 11 and it hasn't come back up since -- we stayed there last night and relied on power from a borrowed generator, while my parents are using the generator we finally bought yesterday afternoon). We've shifted over to nomad mode until our house comes back up -- I'm going to find an air mattress at lunch today so we can crash at the sister-in-law's tonight.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

It's amazing to me sometimes how events like this are reported in the national media. The day of this storm, I did see some reports about it in the national media, but nothing too special. I haven't really seen a word about it since. Then you hear about somebody with a local connection to the event, and all of a sudden, you realize how big an impact it had on their area.

In May this year, there were severe tornados in the mid-west. I was watching the news reports, and they mentioned that a tornado touched down near my roommate's hometown. After getting her up to watch the news, we then watched in horror as they said her town was one of the ones that was "leveled". After a few frantic phone calls, we were relieved to hear that her family was ok. Her town was indeed %90 destroyed, but there were, thankfully, very few deaths. After the next few days, I barely saw any mention of this storm in the national news. Crazy...

Gonk, glad to hear that you and yours are all ok. Hope to hear you're fully back online soon.

I am also in that group of 80K without power. I walked into my house yesterday - looked at my thermostat which said 86,turned right around and went and found a hotel for the night.
On the plus side, some of those drugery chores that always keep getting put off are easily accomplished - turns out cleaning the fidge is so much easier when there is nothing in it..