Oh derecho!

Hey y'all!

I'm so happy to be back.

The only word to describe the past few days is surreal.

I don't know if you all are familiar with my geographic location,

but the only natural disaster we have ever had is flooding.

Don't get me wrong,

flooding is awful,

but usually there is at least a little time to prepare for the floods.

On Friday evening, 

we had a storm called a derecho.

Never heard of it?

Neither had I.

Here is a picture that was taken a few towns over from me:

Apparently,

 a derecho is "a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to that of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term 'straight-line wind damage' sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles ... and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph ... or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho. "

Our wind gusts were 80 mph.

In a nutshell,

it's pretty scary.

Especially when we don't usually see a ginormous thing that looks like a tornado.

When I walked outside and saw a dark red/yellow sky with weird clouds that were moving a million miles an hour...

I definitely pooped my pants.

Straight up.

Not really,

but REALLY.

We (as a state) weren't prepared at all for something like this.

Not in the least bit.

We always have thunderstorms in the summertime...

so when I got an alert on my work computer at 3pm on Friday afternoon, 

telling me there was a severe storm warning beginning at 7:05pm,

I didn't even think twice about it.

They weren't kidding around.

Since the majority of the storm happened in the dark,

waking up to no power, trees uprooted, telephone poles/ power lines snapped in half, cars fighting over gas and people fighting over food....

We were looking over our backs for zombies.

The food situation is a lot better,

and the state is slowly getting their power back,

but the gas situation is still bad.

The hundreds of thousands of PGA tourists and temperatures in the 90s and hundreds are making things a little more complicated,

but the bottom line is it's getting better.

On a happier note,

BayLee got his first girlfriend through this whole ordeal.

Her name is Lilly.

Her parents (my aunt and uncle) stayed with my parents for a day while they were without power.
Oh, puppy love.

Here are a few more pictures I took during the past few days,

Went at 9:30pm to get gas (when the gas truck came to fill the pumps up) and finally filled my tank up at midnight.

After the long wait, mom realized her gas cap was on the wrong side, haha.

National Guard delivering water to my clinic.

BayLee enjoying some AC in my car.

I sure am ready for the 4th!!!
How about y'all!?