storm cleanup, complete(!)

in

(previously…)

Surprise surprise: a call from my grandfather – part of the surprise being the call, given that he still (as of this writing, sun/20220619) doesn't have power or reliable communications – around lunchtime yesterday, a jubilant (for him) call: around 0900, a group of a dozen people showed up with a commercial grade woodchipper and, in two hours, cleared all of the piles I had made as well as the little bits and twigs and sticks left in my chainsaw wake in the wake of the storm. Apparently they were sponsored by a Christian service group or a Christian service group or something, and didn't request to save his soul in return for saving the rest of the yard and the rest of my back: until further evidence to the contrary emerges, I'll consider this to be one of those "people CAN be kind and good" moments, a rare thing nowadays. If they could bring back his Netflix, though, that might be enough to make a believer out of a 95-year-old atheist.

storm cleanup, phase one-b

in

(previously…)

I’ve been chainsawing storm-fallen trees all afternoon and my brain is as fried as my arms so just know that all of the fallen trees are hacked and piled and my grandfather has a yard to mow while he waits for his power and internet and Netflix to return: victory. Next up: cleaning up all of the twigs and figuring out what to do with all the piles. FARGO reenactment, here I come and I wrote more words than I thought I would write so there. PICTURES OF (storm-felled) TREES DOTH ENSUE.

macrobursts

in

(This is not about my newsletter, but about this week’s storm): Hellacious damage in nearby town reinforced how lucky we got ( I do not, unlike several people in the area – tourist traffic now including storm tourism – stop to take photos of others’ misery for my own use).

Anyhow, it seems that the cause all of the devastation wasn’t a tornado but a “macroburst”:

A macroburst is an outward burst of strong winds at or near the surface with horizontal dimensions larger than 4 km (2.5 mi) and occurs when a strong downdraft reaches the surface. To visualize this process, imagine the way water comes out of a faucet and hits the bottom of a sink. The column of water is the downdraft and the outward spray at the bottom of the sink is the macroburst. Macroburst winds may begin over a smaller area and then spread out over a wider area, sometimes producing damage similar to a tornado. Although usually associated with thunderstorms, macrobursts can occur with showers too weak to produce thunder.

Outages continue, though they’re making restorative progress. Useful site: poweroutage.us. – I’m in the orange county above the red one. Like I’ve said, we’ve had power since 1400 on Tuesday. Estimates for rest of area range from later today to this weekend – though excessive heat and scattered storms today might throw a spanner into those works.

outage

in

Update/202206141337: We again have the power; we’re lucky: sounds like it might be at least a week for some people.

Power's been out for a couple of hours, estimated to be restored by 1400; some gnarly storms heralded by so many phone alerts late last night and early this morning… writing this by the light of one of the thousand and one (only a slight exaggeration) lantern-inspired flashlights in an array of colorful colors found when I cleaned out my mother's apartment, the thrum of the neighbor's generator / neighbors' generators and my snoring dogs accompanying... office didn't flood: victory is mine…