Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Serious Storms

When I was a little girl, (early 80's) our house was struck by lightening. It happened in the morning, just as I had left for school. My Mom worked overnight shifts in the ER, so she had just gotten home. She was cooking something in the microwave when it happened, and she actually saw the lightening bolt hit the ground in the backyard after it had hit the house. It totally fried the microwave.

Growing up in Southern California, we didn't get lightening storms very often, so this was a big deal. So big a deal, in fact, that once while I was in the lunch room (1-3 grade) on a rainy day, the principal was excusing us for lunch by playing the game "If you have green stripes on today, you can get in line..." You know the game, right? Anyway, he went through a few things, then said "If your house was struck by lightening, you can line up." I felt very important right at that moment - obviously, this made quite the impression on me, if I can remember such trivial little things about it some 25 years later.

Anyway, after living in New England for the past 8 years, I have come to understand that lightening is common place in the summer time here. When we have a lightening storm, I get a little freaked out. Last night, we had the worst storm I have ever seen. The lightening just kept coming and coming - it was almost like there wasn't even a break between bolts. It lasted for about 30 minutes. When watching the news this morning, I heard that we had 462 lightening strikes per minute! Really, I was in bed just waiting to hear the crack through out attic - I honestly thought it would happen. I was so sure of it, I woke Todd up (how could he have slept through it anyway) to let him know just how freaked out I was! He was less than thrilled.

We survived the storm in tact, but we are having more storms tonight. I don't think my nerves can take much more!

2 comments:

Special K ~Toni said...

My boys were like that when we moved back to the states- thankfully they are over it now!

Unknown said...

I used to love electrical storms but not so much now days!