Yesterday, I was in my home office at about 4:45pm and I looked out the window. It has been oppressively hot in Omaha for the last several days, so you do what you have to do, and burrow in for the rest of the day. All of a sudden it was very dark and ominous. I thought, “Hmmm”, I better go out and cover the furniture. And then, the wind came!

We drew the shades on the deck to try and reflect some of the heat. I quickly rolled them up so they wouldn’t get caught in the wind, then started covering the furniture. I came in the house and said to the husband it’s really dark outside. We immediately turned on the local news and sure enough, they were warning us of 80 MPH winds.

We decided we better go back out and make an attempt to batten down the hatches. There is a lot of furniture and pots etc creating lots of projectiles. Of course, I didn’t want to see the lovely flowers in my pots destroyed, but I quickly realized that didn’t matter. We took mirrors off the wall, removed the iron chandelier, buried one hanging basket, stacked chairs and then the sirens blew. Nothing was happening, so we just carried on, trying to save whatever we could.

And then the wind started to blow. My daughter texted to say she wasn’t going to be able to make it home to her house so she was going to shelter here to wait out the storm. She pulled up in front of the house and the neighbors tree came down! Luckily it was across the street but, I was watching for her and couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t getting out of her car. It was just beginning to rain. She was watching the tree limbs coming down in this wild wind storm all around us.

Finally in the house, we stood at the back door and watched this horrendous wind pick-up heavy chairs and toss them across the deck, pick up my 42″ planter in front of the deck and set it back down. We watched as the wind tossed and flattened plants. Neighbor’s tree limbs came down, and the trees were stripped of foliage. We never had a tornado, and the news said that wasn’t expected. The sirens were going off because of the wind. This went on for maybe 45 minutes and then the power went out.

We rarely lose power because all our power is underground. Lighting a few candles at 6:00 in the evening we waited it out. When all was clear, we still had no power, but we took our first steps outside to access the damage. Our yard looked like an oasis in neighborhood of downed tree limbs. We had one pot blow over in the front, and we had debris from all the neighboring tree limbs but, we were so lucky. We no longer have old growth trees, but most of our neighbors still have the original trees planted when the neighborhood was brand new 45 years ago. The majority of them were maple trees and they cannot withstand 80 MPH winds. We’ve maintained, trimmed, and taken out anything that has had the potential of becoming problematic. Thanks to the husband we lost no trees.

We righted our turned over chairs, retrieved the chair cover that blew off and started to clean up. We discovered two sections of our fence had come loose and will need to be repaired, but that’s it.

My daughter and granddaughter were not so lucky. While my daughters home was fine, they had lots of downed trees and lost a shop on the property due to the open rural areas.

My granddaughter had a car accident trying to get home during the storm. No one was hurt, thank goodness! But she came home to a over grown tree that came down and hit the roof. So, now instead of just planning a wedding for September, they have to move out and repair their home first.

It was an early night at our house last night. With no power we decided to just go to bed. We were rudely awakened by the bedroom chandelier blasting light at us at about 1:00am. The power was back! The husband did his due diligence and went around to reset clocks and turned everything off.

I don’t think I have ever experienced wind storm damage like that before. It gave me new appreciation for people who live in hurricane prone areas. There isn’t a single chain saw available in this city, and I’m sure we’ll hear the buzz for days to come.

In driving to the AOL thrift shop to mail packages today, it took me an hour to get there, when normally it would take me 10 minutes. Of course, when I got there, the power was still out and I couldn’t get in. The third horrendous storm of the season has devastated the entire city. But this was city wide. I decided today was a good day to stay home, share my stories, and find inspiration for new design solutions. Hope everyone is safe.

Thanks for stopping!

Shelley