Hit by the storm:

Last night I was teaching in a computer lab and a student came up to me, said he was sorry for being late and asked if the building had a storm shelter. That must have been around seven. I went to my office when the kids were on break and watched as the winds bent the trees by the highway. Rumors started filtering in as the class continued. We heared that a section of the airport roof had been torn up was now blocking the highway. Semi trailers had flipped and Bush stadium had even had damage. Some of my students left, responding to calls from family memebers, but most stayed until class ended at 10:30. I checked my voicemail and learned that our place had no power and there was a tree down. I wish I could post pictures from this library computer, but there's no port for my palm.

A massive limb from our neighbor's tree came down in the alley, taking the power lines with it. It fell where Kathy, our landlord, normally parks her car. Luckily she was at work. The tree is resting on the back of my van and has dented it. Had it fallen a foot to the right I would no longer own a working van. When the limb fell it took out the general power lines and actually tore the lines off of our apartment, smashing the flood light and doing other sundry damage. The whole grid for our neighborhood is down right now, but when they get the grid back up we still won't be connected to it.

Jes thinks it might be a few days before we have power. She was there when it happened and is still a little shaken, not from the tree so much as the live wires, and the fire/noise that followed the literal explosion of two transformers near the entrance to the alley. A limb from a different tree fell on those transformers, caught fire, and then they exploded.

We took the milk and such to her mother's house last night and I have the rest of the food in a cooler for now. We didn't have any meat oranything to go bad - a side benefit of being broke. I am headed up to the camping store in a bit to get a battery powered minnow bucket to aerate the fish tanks. My van has had a rough year but I think we'll have to call this more of a near miss. It's not going anywhere anytime soon, but it isn't more than scratched and a little dented. I have to figure that the tree fell behind it and then rolled into it as it tore through the lines. You'll have to call if you want more info as I do not even have a line to be on.

We're fine, the pets are fine, did I mention we're going to have a heat index today of one hundred and fifteen? I'll b keeping myself and the dog cool over at Jes' mom's place. No worries - I could have been much, much worse.