Mockingbird Hill Cottage

This photo has nothing to do with this post. It’s a picture of the wild honeysuckle that is blooming near the shed. It’s everywhere on the property.

Yesterday ended up being a rollercoaster of craziness. It started off with me sitting on the porch, writing my blog post about how much I love my house and gardens. Then it got very, very humid – 88 degrees and humid in mid-May is not normal. I knew we were going to get some severe thunderstorms in the afternoon, so I ran some errands in the morning.

I kept an eye on the forecast and read that the worst of the storms would be headed our way sometime between 3 and 7. As I watched the radar, the band of storms looked pretty ominous and there were hints that there might be a tornado watch, so I moved everything that could be a projectile onto the porch floor or into the house and I moved the white chairs from the funky patio to a place near the shed. The prediction was for high winds and golfball sized hail.

Then, the minute I saw that there was a tornado warning, I got a text from Rick, who was in NYC, telling me to get in my basement. At the same time, Doug, who is here, called me. We agreed to keep in phone contact – neither of us was ready to go in the basement yet. My basement entrance is outside, if you remember, and I wasn’t about to go down there unless I had to.

That started about an hour or so of fear. We kept clocking the tornado warning and when it ended at 3:30, we thought “Okay! That’s done.” The band of storms hadn’t reached us yet. Then a new tornado warning came through as an alert on my phone (first time that’s ever happened) and it was to last until 4:15. In the meantime, I was texting Don and Rick and talking to Doug on the phone. That warning ended (I had my phone charged and a flashlight at the ready in case I had to go to the basement) and, sure enough, we got another warning that went to 4:45. In the meantime, the storms had started to hit and Doug urged me to go in the basement, but when I saw the rain going sideways and the wind, I knew it would be very hard to get the outside door open, so I went into the bathroom instead. I plopped a chair in the tub, closed the shower curtain, and stayed there. (Quite the picture, I know.)

All the while I heard thunder and wind and rain pelting the house. The sky turned black. It was very, very scary. The wind sounded like a freight train. Cell phone in hand, I kept tracking the storm. Finally, both Doug and I thought we could emerge from our shelters since the storm seemed to be winding down. We were about 2/3 of the way through it at that point. The lights kept blinking throughout the storm. I could hear the siren in town go off. And I saw several emergency vehicles speed past my house. That happened throughout the evening. I smelled a fire throughout the night, so something was hit by lightning.

I was tracking friends through Facebook. The damage around the Hudson Valley is severe. Tornadoes did touch down, though the National Weather Service has yet to verify it officially. Trees are down everywhere, commuters couldn’t get home on the train from NYC because of damage to the tracks, power is out in many communities.

We were lucky.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t terrified. I was. I know many of you deal with this quite often, but we don’t. I can’t remember one tornado warning in the almost 17 years we’ve lived out here. Tornado watches…yes. Not warnings. The occasional, very rare, tornado touches down out here in the East. But a line of storms like this is not the norm.

I went outside later and put everything to rights. It’s supposed to rain again today, but I’m assuming it will be rather gentle compared to what we saw yesterday. Honestly, I kept thinking how bizarrely ironic it would be if I lost my house and gardens on the same day I had written so glowingly about them.

Sigh of relief.

Don had to be in a rehearsal and kept checking on me via text messages. Imagine how powerless he felt. I had left him one phone message where I was crying, but thankfully, he didn’t hear that until after he knew I was okay.

Exhausted today. But thankful. And grateful for Doug’s calm voice on the other end of the phone.

Happy Wednesday.