crazy DC storm

[cteno4]

well we had an interesting storm come through last night. was called a derecho. basically a very strong storm band that produces very high linear wind gusts (up to 75mph here last night) the whole thing was over in 15 minutes, but really took out trees and limb galore. most ive seen here in 10 years. we had a 24" x 100' tree snap in half (we have about 50 large trees on the lot) and luckily just bend over and take out some fence. another tree about 24" x8' tree right next to us in the little wooded buffer strip to the park next to us blew over (it was sick but parks did not take it out) and luckily got stuck in one of our trees at about 30 degrees off vertical -- it was headed straight for the house. neighbors across the street had half a large tree hit the car port but luckily little damage to it but totaled their car parked right outside the car port. neighbors next to them had a large oak come down across the house. took out the car port and punched 6 large limbs through the roof and ceiling of the dining room, living room and bedrooms. lots of houses in the area got speared thru the roof with 2-4" limbs. pretty wild.

 

needless to say about a million w/o power right now. finally our generator is paying off! after 9 years with like 4-5 days per year w/o power (we are ranked about lowest in the nation for a metro area and right there with third world countries) and dorthy going through 5.5days w/o power in the snowpoclypse a couple of years ago (i was in warm california at the time), so we bit the bullet and installed one that would cover the essentials of the house. well in the last year and a half its logged only 1 hr of having to provide power! figured it was murphy's law and wanted to get $50 from each neighbor for providing the protection! but now looks like its going to be nice to have for a few days. no ac, but the trees keep it pretty cool here, so thats the nice thing about them (until they come crashing down!)

 

we get summer storms with microbursts (sort of like really small tornados that last just a second or so) but they may rip a few limbs off here and there but very very sporatic. this was more sustained like a hurricane across the whole front, thus all the damage.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Densha]

It's times like these that I'm glad that I live the Netherlands.

[cteno4]

until the water rises! ;-p

 

love the houses that have foundations pretty much like a barge so if it floods they just float!

 

over 3 million w/o power, looks like it might be a long time before we get power back...

 

jeff

[westfalen]

I think this is my travel jinx. Whenever I travel overseas there seem to be disasters of some kind wherever I go, from typhoons in Japan to eruptions in New Zealand. It's a running gag with everyone back home. The US has had storms, bush fires and a bad train wreck since I've been here.

[cteno4]

Yikes if you did this being out west, please dont come to dc! im sure weve given your friends a lot of fodder with this trip!

 

jeff

[Densha]

until the water rises! ;-p

True, but fortunately I've never had any experience with that. There's an small area between the Randstad agglomeration to the west coast where there are problems sometimes, but the cities seem to be built on a bit higher grounds for the most part. Still I live in the lowest area of my city though and if there is a breach in the dike of a channel a few kilometers from here, then we'll probably get trouble too I realized a while ago. It still seems as if my city gets spared from most water also for some reason.

[bill937ca]

[cteno4]

sort of what happened to the car cover. next door neighbor was watching it balloon up at the beginning of the storm then it finally popped off and went flying thru the air wizard of oz style as she described it into their house. at that point her husband grabbed her away from the big window she was in front of facing the storm...

 

we have a lot of glass in the house, center of the house is all glass floor to ceiling, but very big eaves so nothing crashed into them. i was amazed none of the large screen porch screens did not blow out with the stuff hitting them. when i moved the one car into the garage i got pelted by small bits of debris and they really hurt.

 

they are now talking 1 week w/o power perhaps.

 

jeff

[Guest ___]

I left HGR last night around 2200 and in every direction all I could see was lightning. There was no rain, good strong winds in every direction. It stayed so bright that there was not a minute of darkness for about 20 miles till I caught up with the storm. It was so bad that I could not find a place on a should to pull over on I-70. I could not see past the end of the hood in the car-like driving through a full-on car wash. Made it to the rest stop at South Mountain and camped out there for two hours. Not the worst storm I've seen o been in--I've been in worse, and on a boat. Cell-service is still down up here in a lot of areas.

[Guest ___]

BTW: From what NWS reported, DC & NoVa didn't get hit nearly as bad as Berkley Co, Washington Co. and Allegheny Co. did  (NWS reported FDK Co. got off lucky compared to the rest of Western MD)

[cteno4]

Curt just emailed this too me. we just got the ash shoveled off the roof and are now battening down for the hurricane later today. I expect goji will be fun on tuesday if we make it though, but expect he will have muddy toes.

 

jeff

[Bernard]

Wow! We're not getting this weather in the NYC area...how is the power situation doing now?

 

Bill - I liked the video of the tarp but do they really think in those high winds they're going to be able to put it back on??  I loved the announcer fearing about being electrocuted while broadcasting and saying he is going down to help on the field (or did he leave to search for a fall out shelter?)

[cteno4]

LOL thought the same thing as well. and i love how he reports it like its the hindenburg going down! its a tarp blowing around! oh the humanity!

 

still w/o power. pepco is still saying about half their 440000 customers are w/o power. maybe a week before most is back up. montgomery county is really got a lot of trees and we live in one of the most heavily wooded areas (last bit of continuous tree canopy in the area), so it may be a while. saw lots more big trees down when coming home last night that were taking out half of some major roads that still were not cleared. bit of a mess. good news is the imported crews started showing up last night. but the line guys cant do a thing till the trees are cleared on a lot of the damage.

 

bit stuffy w/o the ac, but its a bit cooler now in the lower 90s so looks like no 100+ stuff again! at least i can work and we didnt loose the fridge and freezers worth of food! sister in law was cleaning out her fridge last night in a very hot house and very smelly, not a pleasant job! about 9 years ago a hurricane took out the power here for 8 days. happened 2 days after we left for 3 weeks in japan so we got to miss that one! but on returning i had a freezer in the basement that had basically melted down then refroze when the power came back on. big block of smelly muck to chip out of the bottom of the freezer, retch city. i felt for the guys they showed dealing with the biohazard freezers after a month or two after katrina!

 

jeff