This week has been one for weird weather. As you may or may not know, California was not the ONLY state in the union getting record amounts of precipitation this last week. Arizona got it's share too. After 3 days of rain, we thought our pool might overflow... (but thankfully, it did not!)
Thursday night was probably the worst day for us. We have DirecTV, and the storm made it impossible for us to watch TV Thursday night, so we turned off the satellite and turned on a DVD instead. I left the kids at home on the couch watching a movie to go out and do some visits to ladies in my congregation. I didn't really want to go out in the bad weather, but I'd already had to re-schedule these appointments once, and I didn't want to have to do it again. 
As I made my rounds, the weather got steadily worse, and when I was finally on my way home, the rain just started to come down in sheets. I couldn't seen more than 20-30 feet in front of my car. That's when I really started to listen to what they were saying on the radio: Tornado warnings! The news guys then proceeded to list off the things you should do or not do in the event that you are in the path of a tornado.
While I drove the remaining 2 miles back to my house, with now white knuckles, I listened to their instructions. (I've never lived anywhere in a tornado zone....) I found out that if I saw a tornado coming towards my car, I was supposed to abandon my car, and run for a ditch and lay in the bottom of it. I saw two problems with this plan: first, I wouldn't be able to see a tornado coming because the visibility was so terrible. Second, every AZ street has ditches nearby (for water collection during the monsoon rains), but guess what... every single ditch in Phoenix was guaranteed to be a foot deep of freezing cold rain water!
Fortunately, I made it home without incident and was never so happy to be in my own home again with all the family together! When I put my kids to bed, I told Taylor that if he heard what sounded like a train coming to run over our house, that would be a tornado, and he needed to wake everyone up, grab a kid and head for the closet under the stairs. I think I completely freaked him out, but I felt like I had to cover all the bases, right?
On Friday afternoon, the rain had finally given up enough that I could walk the neighborhood and get these photos. Our common areas lost 6-7 trees and the Tree Doctors were out Friday cleaning them up. We had 4 new lakes in the neighborhood (all were in our pre-made water collection areas), but as far as I know, no other flooding.
The bright spot of my photo shoot? These purple roses... I didn't know roses were so hardy. They survived the storm just fine.
It feels good to know what we need to do if we ever have another tornado scare here, but hey, give me an earthquake any day, will ya?
As I made my rounds, the weather got steadily worse, and when I was finally on my way home, the rain just started to come down in sheets. I couldn't seen more than 20-30 feet in front of my car. That's when I really started to listen to what they were saying on the radio: Tornado warnings! The news guys then proceeded to list off the things you should do or not do in the event that you are in the path of a tornado.
While I drove the remaining 2 miles back to my house, with now white knuckles, I listened to their instructions. (I've never lived anywhere in a tornado zone....) I found out that if I saw a tornado coming towards my car, I was supposed to abandon my car, and run for a ditch and lay in the bottom of it. I saw two problems with this plan: first, I wouldn't be able to see a tornado coming because the visibility was so terrible. Second, every AZ street has ditches nearby (for water collection during the monsoon rains), but guess what... every single ditch in Phoenix was guaranteed to be a foot deep of freezing cold rain water!
Fortunately, I made it home without incident and was never so happy to be in my own home again with all the family together! When I put my kids to bed, I told Taylor that if he heard what sounded like a train coming to run over our house, that would be a tornado, and he needed to wake everyone up, grab a kid and head for the closet under the stairs. I think I completely freaked him out, but I felt like I had to cover all the bases, right?
On Friday afternoon, the rain had finally given up enough that I could walk the neighborhood and get these photos. Our common areas lost 6-7 trees and the Tree Doctors were out Friday cleaning them up. We had 4 new lakes in the neighborhood (all were in our pre-made water collection areas), but as far as I know, no other flooding.
The bright spot of my photo shoot? These purple roses... I didn't know roses were so hardy. They survived the storm just fine.
It feels good to know what we need to do if we ever have another tornado scare here, but hey, give me an earthquake any day, will ya? 
