After the Storm

Sunday, 17 April 2011

We survived last night’s storm unscathed and woke up to brilliant sunshine and blue skies with filmy white clouds.  There’s still a bit of wind, but nothing like what we’ve been seeing the past couple of days.

From this last night …. to this at 8:00a this morning.

After the first storm, which passed through while I was writing the blog, a second front came through.  It was less intense as far as lightning and thunder, but it brought equally strong winds and heavy rain.  It was shorter in duration and was soon heading off to the north.

Lighter winds, with strong gusts, shook us all night.  Most of the time, we felt like we were on a boat at sea, being rocked to sleep.  The worst part, I think, was all the flapping sounds from the wind getting into the nooks and crevices, especially around the slide toppers.

Overall, our first storm in the coach was quite the experience.  But the tornados that we were watching for did not hit the area, so we’ve got a lot to be grateful for.  This storm system, which started in Oklahoma several days ago, has claimed a lot of lives, many of them in North Carolina and Virginia.  According to one news article I read, “… in hard-hit swaths of North Carolina, where 62 tornadoes were reported from the worst spring storm in two decades to hit the state.  At least a half dozen people died just in the Carolinas and Virginia and authorities warned the toll was likely to rise further Sunday as searchers probed shattered homes and businesses. …”

Like I said, we have a lot to be grateful for.  One thing’s for sure, when we decided to head down to the OBX in April, well ahead of the hurricane season, we did not anticipate we’d be looking out for tornados instead.