Thursday night, we got POUNDED by a crazy strong thunderstorm. I hadn't been feeling well Thursday afternoon so I called Ben and asked him to go get William from my folks house and pick up some dinner on the way home. I came home took a nap, felt some better and greeted my boys when they came home.
We'd just sat down to a nice dinner of Whataburger and had the news on in the back ground when we hear the weatherman say something about people living along FM 920 taking cover. Umm....that's where we live. So, we turn the volume up on the TV and sure enough there's a huge thunderstorm headed our way and the radar shows a BLACK hail center to the storm, producing SOFTBALL sized hail that is supposed to slam down right on us. Not to mention, the several rotations dected by the radar in this storm.
William, still strapped in his high chair was promptly relocated to the hallway (our only interior area) as well as all the cushions from our couches. Ben was watching the storm approach from the west out the back window. I knew things were going to be ugly when hail stones first hit the east side of the house from a storm moving in from the west. I'd guess that's an indication of some rotation with in the storm.
You know how they always say that tornado producing thunderstorms make the sky look greenish. I'd say this thunderstorm was a close relative of kermit the freakin' frog. Needless to say I was a little scared. We all 3 sat in the hallway as hail pounded the crap out of our house. William, poor kid, seemed oblivious, sitting in his high chair in the hallway, eating his french fries.
The good news, no tornados touched down, and we only got about quarter to ping pong ball sized hail at our house. The bad news, our house, and my jeep, got the holy ever livin' crud beat out of them. So, we'll soon have the pleasure of making aquaintances with an insurance adjuster at our house.
I felt very fortunate when I got to school Friday and learned that the community near my school, Mineral Wells, actually did get pelted by softball sized hail. All of the sky lights at Wal-Mart busted out, and the store closed for a couple of weeks while repairs are done. My school nurse and her husband were in the car trying to get to safety when their front and rear windshields were broken out by softball sized hailstones. He continued driving until they got somewhere safe, she crawled over broken glass and laid on top of her two boy who were in the floor board to protect them from the hail. She had a few cuts from the glass but the worst was the huge ugly black and green bruise on her back from one of the hail stones. Some wonderful waitstaff at the Chili's in Mineral Wells helped them get their boys out of the car and inside. Things weren't much better inside Chili's where there was water pouring from the ceiling and everyone was huddled in the walk in refrigerator to keep safe from possible Tornados.
Needless to say, things were a little crazy in North Texas on Thursday night and we all woke up Friday morning with one more reason to count our blessings.
Here's some pictures of the aftermath at our house. By the way, that's all hail, not snow!
