Storm

Sunday I took the kids to church on my own. I haven't done that with both kids in a very long time. It's usually either all of us as a family, or just me and Acilia. Al was out of town and I decided it was the perfect day to try to see if I could handle both kids on my own. They did great together! Miles is used to being in the nursery, so sitting through a whole church service is tough for the 4 year old. We have a little pattern, go to church then get lunch at Portillos afterwards. The choice is either stay in the car or go in to eat. Acilia requested we go in. Acilia chose where we sat and the three of us sat down to eat. Where we sat, I couldn't see much of the sky, but I happened to see a little peak of sky above a white building and it was B L A C K. I walked in with sunglasses on shortly before. Love Chicago weather :) I told the kids it looked like a good downpour was coming, so we should finish up and get going. The winds picked up as we walked to the car and we started driving, the rain came. My parents called, they always do when there are storms and they don't know where their kids are. It was storming by them, it was bad, high winds, the trees were bending over they said. I decided unless I went way out of my way, the only way around the storm was to drive directly through it. I drove a mile or two and it was intense after that. I couldn't see in front of me, there were branches flying through the sky, the rain turned to hail and everyone was driving with their hazards on. I picked a parking lot to turn into, it was between two brick buildings, I still felt vulnerable so I pulled out and started down the road again, then I found a driveway that belonged to a home. It looked like no one was home, I half thought of going to the door to seek shelter, but then had the kids sit between seats on the floor (I was worried something would fly through the window). I again started to drive. Got another block and found a CVS pharmacy where many others were parked. I pulled into a spot and there were people inside with the doors closed, the power was out and everyone was sort of just waiting it out. I climbed in the back and cuddled with Miles while Acilia was sitting there quietly praying. We had a talk about how God must be fighting Satan and clearly God was winning! Suddenly it lightened up a little bit, it was still a downpour with some hail, but I could atleast see. So we drove on, we had a few more miles to go until we got home, the damage was apparent the whole way home. We saw trees down by the dozens, two stop lights were on the ground, signs down, even a tree on a house. Fences down, lights out. Main Street by our house was flooded. The rain came so fast! And this was after having no rain and record breaking heat for weeks! Our power was out when we got home, I had to park outside of the garage. Miles grabbed some of his cars, he was scared they might blow away (love the logic of a 4 year old) :) It was still raining pretty hard so we ran inside, Al was home to greet us. I was glad to be home. When it stopped, we attempted to get our day back to normal. It's amazing how much you take for granted until you have no power. Thankfully we are in a town so we had running water. Unincorporated areas not so lucky, no power equals no water. Our power was out until 8 am the next morning. Thankfully we have a generator and were able to keep some fans going in the house where we slept and our refrigerator was kept running, we were able to keep the phones charged, we even had the TV in the master bedroom! Al, of course was called out to emergencies all night, he's an electrician. It's been two days since the storm, there are still many many many without power! Our town was the hardest hit, but there are a handful of towns miles apart that were affected too and are also still suffering without power. The heat is adding salt to the wound, it's averaging 14 degrees above normal.

My home had no damage, my whole little neighborhood seems to have gotten by without damage. The other side of town though is another story. Our local park is demolished. 200 year old trees were uprooted completely or snapped in half. We walked through that night along with many other townspeople. It was unreal. Each step was littered with huge trees and leaves and branches. They say it could take up to a month to clean it all up.  The park is 89 acres. It looks like this:

Amazing to me; our town's 9-11 statue that resides in the park was left unharmed!