Dear Bloggers,
It was a hot summer evening with dark thunderclouds hanging over the fields and my wife and kids looked happy when I finally showed up after work. I had to work the late shift and my youngest was sound asleep when out of nothing a thunderstorm came around and my oldest was sitting in front of the kitchen window watching raindrops plink the puddles when she heard a rumble outside followed by a loud bang. My youngest daughter was downstairs in a millisecond. From that moment the wind speeded up to hurricane strength and wiped out everything on its way.
Things I met on my way
During the ride I phoned home that I could see this enormous thunderstorm
coming at me and she told me that it just went over them and it was bad. As I
drove closer towards my home the rain pounded on my windshield and the wipers
had a hard job to do. The rain caused a kind of ground mist and made it hard to
find the road and some trees had fallen over the road. A few kilometers from
home all the trees had fallen over on houses and cars and also the phone
connection failed to work. I got pretty worried when I saw all the blue
flashing lights coming towards me. I took some effort to get around the fallen
trees.
All of a sudden there was a tree in the way
They all looked very happy when I walked in the front door. My wife knew
right away it was me, though she could never say how. There were always cars
idling in the street at night, boyfriends of neighborhood girls giving it one
last shot, suburban kids after a night out in town. The storm crushed up the TV
signal too much and the wind hauled too loud and made the windows tremble, the
flashes kept them up at night.
The world turned all off a sudden pitch black
the other campsite the day after
When the wind had eased down after half an hour, I talked to some of the
neighbors and found out that on a campsite about 750 meters away that a little
child was stuck in mobile home as a tree fell on top of the wagon. The child
just came that day to have a bit of a holiday with her grandparents. The fire
brigade had too saw themselves away towards the campsite to get the ambulance
services down there. Some of the locals went over there with chainsaws and big
tractor trying to lift up the tree and to rescue this child.
They did what they could for her, although they could not reach her. She lost life before the ambulance was there, very sad.
horror on the campsite
But she was too badly injured that before they
could get her out she had passed away. A sad story that shook up our little
village as in my neighborhood there are a lot of young families with kids. We
understand very well that this 7 year old girl has been fighting for her life
but did not make it. An unbearable trauma for everyone that was involved.
We live in the houses behind the trees in the distance
This tree snapped like a match
The next morning when we had breakfast, I scrambled some eggs and bacon
done crisp the way I knew they liked it. I put everything on the table made the
girls some tea and for myself plenty of strong coffee. Sometimes we’d sing together,
doo wop harmonies from when they were little girls or one of a half dozen Christmas
songs, a morning serenade that would carry me through the whole day. Then we
would leave in a swirl of laughter and going to a fun park as we had planned,
pulling away with horns honking, long after the other dads had gone to work.
When we left, just the song on the radio from Pearl Jam “Just Breathe” could
bring me to tears.
“All of this happened a bit more
than a week ago” During our walks in the area we realize that we have been very
lucky. As another campsite a few kilometers away was hit as well and a caravan
was blown over and injured a couple. It looked like a warzone, the pictures
will tell the rest of the story
On the next day while I did the dishes I studied a map, tracing the storms
route with a yellow highlight pen.
No Damage at all
My neighborhood
Outside the rain had stopped and the sky was
turning gray again. The car in the yard looked cold. Soon it started to rain
again and yesterday it was a beautiful and sunny day again. A sad day and time
to check out the damage only the tent of the neighbors was smashed by the wind
and some of the trees were ripped up.
Mamy trees fell over
Lightning flashed outside the window and a loud crack of thunder shook the
dishes in the cabinet. More thunder rolled right over top of them, breaking off
somewhere to the west. Still none of us did cry. But this time all of us were
awfully quiet. Lightning flashed as we made their way up the hallway. When we
got to the kitchen the storm was just drifting off.
The Old Sailor,
