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Still standing
Sep. 22nd, 2005 01:05 amI've gotten one or two inquiring emails, so I thought I'd say that Blaisdell Polytechnic is still standing. There wasn't really even any doubt about whether it would be. We didn't get huge winds, though we did get a great deal of rain in at least three installments.
I did not enjoy the storm. I like thunderstorms very well, but we were under a tornado watch beginning in mid-afternoon, and I never like that. I took Ari outside around six-thirty, and it was quite dark already. He pottered around happily for half an hour and then suddenly sniffed the air, lashed his tail, and indicated a desire to go inside now. The sky wasn't the canonical green color, but it looked vaguely curdled, in small swirls of pale gray and dull yellow. There were some thunderheads in the west, underlit by a garish yellow rather than the usual peach. The birds were flying fast and low, making occasional comments.
Inside the house, the weather radio was going off every ten minutes, and it was never us, and then it was. Severe thunderstorm with winds in excess of seventy-five miles an hour. I was just thinking that we should probably corral the cats and put them in the basement just to be safe, when the Civil Defense sirens went. I hate those bloody things. They do not mean bad weather to me; they mean nuclear attack and probably the end of civilization. I hate the sound of them even on the first Wednesday of every month when they are tested, the weather bland as butter, the voice on the radio saying merely, "This has been a test... ." Lydy, hearing the sirens, scooped Ari out of his box in the window and carried him upstairs, where I told her No tornado, and then Raphael, looking on the web, said, Oh yes there is a tornado. Ari ripped a bit out of my shirt and climbed painfully over Lydy's back, but we got him into a carrier. Then Beryl went in to another carrier, protesting hugely. "Sweetie, just calm down," said Raphael, and was not talking to the cat. I hate those damn sirens. Then we incarcerated Jordan, and lugged all three of them downstairs, in between shutting windows and trying to shut the storm window parts of the incredibly stupidly designed and crappily manufactured combination storm windows that the cheapskate landlords who didn't live in this house put on it. Morons.
Lydy had put Naomi in David's room (which is in the basement), and Arwen had been spotted in the basement proper, so we relaxed about the cats. I noted that there weren't any chairs in the basement to speak of, and said that an organized household would bring in its four lawn chairs in weather like this. Lydy said she loved weather and nothing scary was happening right now, so could she go outside and look at the sky and bring in chairs? She did. They were about as wet as a heavy fall of dew would make them. I mopped them off with a towel, and was glad enough to have one to sit in while we waited for the tornado watch to expire. A few flickers of lightning showed through the glass of the back door. David went into his room and looked weather up on the computer. Raphael got frustrated with the weather radio, which has no map attached, and went back upstairs to check the TV. The trees were not tossing in the breeze. The weather radio kept going off, tornado this, severe thunderstorm watch that, severe thunderstorm with dangerous sky to ground lightning and damaging hail, flash flood, severe thunderstorm with damaging winds, go indoors and stay away from windows. I moved the cat carriers away from the path glass might follow coming down the back stairs from the panel in the door. The cats were extremely unhappy and expressed themselves about it quite a bit.
At a little after eight, when the tornado warning was supposed to expire, David and Lydy went out for dinner. David remarked that it used to be that a tornado warning was not issued unless there was an actual tornado, and now one was issued if a storm might produce a tornado, and there were more and more warnings and yet nothing happened.
A few things did happen, most sadly this:
"09/21/2005 0732 PM
Minneapolis, Hennepin County.
Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by law enforcement.
*** 1 fatal *** large tree branch fell on top of victim."
Where I was, it was quiet. The lightning ebbed and flowed; there was a flurry of thunder. Raphael came downstairs to say that the tornado watch had expired and that the opinion of the experts was that there were unlikely to be more tornadoes because the atmosphere had cooled off too much.
We took the upstairs cats back upstairs and released them, and I let Naomi out of David's room.
It was 88 degrees when the excitement began. Now it's 66. The humidity is 96%. I made a late dinner of black-eyed peas with chard, which used up the adrenaline rush and was very tasty too. David and Lydy came back undrowned.
I hate those sirens.
P.
I did not enjoy the storm. I like thunderstorms very well, but we were under a tornado watch beginning in mid-afternoon, and I never like that. I took Ari outside around six-thirty, and it was quite dark already. He pottered around happily for half an hour and then suddenly sniffed the air, lashed his tail, and indicated a desire to go inside now. The sky wasn't the canonical green color, but it looked vaguely curdled, in small swirls of pale gray and dull yellow. There were some thunderheads in the west, underlit by a garish yellow rather than the usual peach. The birds were flying fast and low, making occasional comments.
Inside the house, the weather radio was going off every ten minutes, and it was never us, and then it was. Severe thunderstorm with winds in excess of seventy-five miles an hour. I was just thinking that we should probably corral the cats and put them in the basement just to be safe, when the Civil Defense sirens went. I hate those bloody things. They do not mean bad weather to me; they mean nuclear attack and probably the end of civilization. I hate the sound of them even on the first Wednesday of every month when they are tested, the weather bland as butter, the voice on the radio saying merely, "This has been a test... ." Lydy, hearing the sirens, scooped Ari out of his box in the window and carried him upstairs, where I told her No tornado, and then Raphael, looking on the web, said, Oh yes there is a tornado. Ari ripped a bit out of my shirt and climbed painfully over Lydy's back, but we got him into a carrier. Then Beryl went in to another carrier, protesting hugely. "Sweetie, just calm down," said Raphael, and was not talking to the cat. I hate those damn sirens. Then we incarcerated Jordan, and lugged all three of them downstairs, in between shutting windows and trying to shut the storm window parts of the incredibly stupidly designed and crappily manufactured combination storm windows that the cheapskate landlords who didn't live in this house put on it. Morons.
Lydy had put Naomi in David's room (which is in the basement), and Arwen had been spotted in the basement proper, so we relaxed about the cats. I noted that there weren't any chairs in the basement to speak of, and said that an organized household would bring in its four lawn chairs in weather like this. Lydy said she loved weather and nothing scary was happening right now, so could she go outside and look at the sky and bring in chairs? She did. They were about as wet as a heavy fall of dew would make them. I mopped them off with a towel, and was glad enough to have one to sit in while we waited for the tornado watch to expire. A few flickers of lightning showed through the glass of the back door. David went into his room and looked weather up on the computer. Raphael got frustrated with the weather radio, which has no map attached, and went back upstairs to check the TV. The trees were not tossing in the breeze. The weather radio kept going off, tornado this, severe thunderstorm watch that, severe thunderstorm with dangerous sky to ground lightning and damaging hail, flash flood, severe thunderstorm with damaging winds, go indoors and stay away from windows. I moved the cat carriers away from the path glass might follow coming down the back stairs from the panel in the door. The cats were extremely unhappy and expressed themselves about it quite a bit.
At a little after eight, when the tornado warning was supposed to expire, David and Lydy went out for dinner. David remarked that it used to be that a tornado warning was not issued unless there was an actual tornado, and now one was issued if a storm might produce a tornado, and there were more and more warnings and yet nothing happened.
A few things did happen, most sadly this:
"09/21/2005 0732 PM
Minneapolis, Hennepin County.
Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by law enforcement.
*** 1 fatal *** large tree branch fell on top of victim."
Where I was, it was quiet. The lightning ebbed and flowed; there was a flurry of thunder. Raphael came downstairs to say that the tornado watch had expired and that the opinion of the experts was that there were unlikely to be more tornadoes because the atmosphere had cooled off too much.
We took the upstairs cats back upstairs and released them, and I let Naomi out of David's room.
It was 88 degrees when the excitement began. Now it's 66. The humidity is 96%. I made a late dinner of black-eyed peas with chard, which used up the adrenaline rush and was very tasty too. David and Lydy came back undrowned.
I hate those sirens.
P.
