Tornadoes and hail storms, oh my!

arbilad · Head Chef

Tornadoes and hail storms, oh my!

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Good gravy. Glad you're okay.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/weather/16321240/detail.html

I found a story on it. Yikes. I don't recall tornadoes getting that far west before let alone causing any damage.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Any damage to the cat, er, kennels? What do you call your catapartments? What about your chickens? Roof? Car?

arbilad · Head Chef

Car got its windshield beat to heck. There's other assorted damage.

Hick, way to almost give me a heart attack! That article puts the hurricane having passed within a few miles at most of my house! I'm glad that my family got through it Ok, but now the cell phone circuits are jammed going into that county.
In fact, the only fatality occurred pretty close to my house.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Sorry, Arbi. I didn't mean to scare you. How are your neighbors?

mirkwood · Senior Bucketkeeper

I have not seen hail like that in years. It was probably the early 80's when we had golfball sized hail here in the SLC area.

arbilad · Head Chef

hiccups wrote:

Sorry, Arbi. I didn't mean to scare you. How are your neighbors?

No idea. I haven't spoken to my wife in a couple of hours, and then the connection was bad. Now I just can't get through.
BTW, I won't be posting tonight because it's a real bear to access this website from my cell phone, and with the phone out the internet is out.
I'm a bit surprised by how strongly this has hit me. I'm almost shaking. We are very blessed.
I haven't heard from my car insurance company yet, but I imagine that they're dealing with a lot of hail claims at the moment.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Duh, I just put it together. You're probably at work with your family home next to the trouble. That would freak me out good. Glad you had some contact.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Deep breaths, Arbi. I feel for ya. How scary for you to be separated from your family during this storm. I hope you are able to get home to them without to much trouble tonight. You may want to pick up a few water bottles and some snack foods from a store before you begin the trek - just in case.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Sheesh! I'd be heading out of work RIGHT NOW, dude! That would freak me out, too!

Warning: Be prepared for even more extremist apocalyptic posts from arbi in the future.

coolcucumbers · Senior Member

yes, I'd be heading home right now, well first to the store to stock up on essentials just in case. Then home to see my family.
I'm glad your family is safe, Arbi.

arbilad · Head Chef

Family is Ok, and our home actually made it through quite well. My home teacher's coworkers were turned over in their semis, but I haven't heard of significant damage yet in our ward. I'm very grateful to the Lord.
Also, I got enough sleep last night because we didn't want to waste candles and I went to bed immediately as it got dark. Power was on this morning, though, which made it easier to get ready to go to work.
My wife had to call her mom in Ukraine on her cell phone, which is horrendously expensive. The call didn't last long, but she didn't want her mom to worry. The tornado passed right through our town, and her mom worries even when disasters happen in other states far away from us.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Glad to hear it's not too bad, Arbi.

mirkwood · Senior Bucketkeeper

Glad all sounds okay.

arbilad · Head Chef

We're very lucky, with not much damage. Our damage probably totals less than a thousand dollars worth. But several people were not so lucky. Huge trees just a mile away were shorn clear through like a giant with an axe was rampaging. Our executive secretary lost his house. The Elder's Quorum president has been taking time off his business to lead volunteer efforts for the ward, even though he is a landscaper and this is his busy season.
Our business partner (my wife's going to start making and selling Ukrainian food as soon as we get the revenue number from the @#$#@% state government) lives in Windsor, and they lost a roof and some windows, but they're all ok. I almost feel selfish for feeling so lucky. The commercial kitchen where my wife will be working is located in Windsor, and it made it through the tornado alright.
We got power back much earlier even than many people in the same city. Our business partner won't get power back until next week.
The recovery effort is going to take all summer. So if you have any teenagers that are out of school and need something to do, send them to Colorado. I'm sure we can find places for them to stay, and they can reconstruct Windsor for their summer activities.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Man! That was a close one!

What kind of Ukrainian food?

dianoia · Senior Member

This is nowhere near the level of arbi's little adventure, but our river is flooding and overgrown its banks. Again. (The town is still making repairs and cleaning up after the last flood three years ago.)

There's a major construction site near the river that's underwater now - hubby keeps shaking his head that people still insist on building on a flood plain. It's called a flood plain for a reason, people.

And it's still raining.

arbilad · Head Chef

Wow, Dianoia. Floods are dangerous too. I happen to agree with your husband about building on flood plains.
Today, instead of church, most of the ward went up to help with the cleanup efforts in Windsor. I got badly sunburned (I burn easily, even with sunscreen), but I feel really good for having done it. The damage was something to see. In fact, the highway nearest the damaged area was constantly busy with people just driving by to look at the damage. I kept thinking, "If you want a really good look, just get out of your car and help clean up."
There was still so much more work to do, and I felt bad that we didn't get it finished.
Many houses were destroyed. Some were salvageable, like one where a refrigerator flew through a wall. That is, the wind got inside the house and blew the refrigerator outside through the wall.
Many other groups were there. Some scientology people were giving out cold water. Another church group showed up with food in the afternoon, which was welcome, even though we had had lunch earlier. You go through a lot of calories cleaning up tornado damage.
It was a good service project for my son, too.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

What's the latest, Arbi? How are the communities recovering?

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Is your food storage depleted yet?

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Twister's one of my favorite movies.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

dianoia · Senior Member

Flooding's gone down.

Except now we have a boil water advisory that may last up to a week.

You have no idea how irresistible the church fountains are once you know you can't drink from them.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

dianoia wrote:

You have no idea how irresistible the church fountains are once you know you can't drink from them.

There was a problem with the water in a neighboring town a few years ago. It's crazy how bad I wanted to drink from the taped off water fountains.

mirkwood · Senior Bucketkeeper

dianoia wrote:

Flooding's gone down.

Except now we have a boil water advisory that may last up to a week.

You have no idea how irresistible the church fountains are once you know you can't drink from them.

What does Water Guy think of treating water with powdered pool chlorhine?

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Maybe you can have a pool boy come do it.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Would Water Guy approve of a pool boy hanging around?

dianoia · Senior Member

Water Guy's in the tub right now. (And you're thinking, "Well, of course he is, he's the WATER GUY.)

I'll ask him when he gets out.

and <ahem> he's enough man for me. No need for a pool boy.

-- Edited by dianoia at 21:25, 2008-06-01

dianoia · Senior Member

Okay, mirky, here's what Water Guy says -

Powdered pool chlorine is just fine, but there are some caveats:

1) Make sure it's just Calcium Hypochlorite, with no additives eg. anti-fungals or pH controllers, or impurities (be aware that some industrial versions have impurities because they're not controlled during manufacturing, and that's why they're cheaper - however, in an emergency, better that than nothing)

2) Powdered chlorine is WAAAAAY stronger. Common household bleach is 3% concentration, commercial bleach is 12-15% concentration, and the powdered stuff is.... wait for it.... 65% concentration. Yowza.

And Water Guy says his techno-geekness needs to clarify that this means 65% chlorine availability - I have no idea why that's a significant thing to add, but there ya go.

So you need 1/22nd of what you'd use with household bleach. This stuff is designed for (obviously) large volumes of water.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Oh, yeaaaah.... water guy = MrDianoia

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

dianoia · Senior Member

....and it's flooding AGAIN. (We're still boiling our water from the last flood.)