Not again!

2009 continues to be a hard weather year for this part of the world. Yesterday morning, just as I was getting up to start my day (about 5 a.m.) a line of severe thunderstorms blew into the Monticello area. We had a tornado warning for the area, but the wind damage apparently was caused by straight-line winds, not a tornado. Still, many trees and power lines were down on the north and east side of Monticello and a number of other communities here in Arkansas. Homes, businesses, vehicles, and other property were damaged, and a few injuries from the storm and its aftermath have been reported. Our place is fine--the power flicked on and off a few times, and our biggest impact so far was that they canceled Kenny's school yesterday. These storms also brought heavy rainfall most of Tuesday morning, with around 3.3 inches here on campus. Our area has received between 8 and 12 inches of rain during the last 4 days, with more rain forecast for the next week. Needless to say, streams and rivers are at flood stage in many places, and my backyard still looks and feels like a bog!

Many of the trees that blew down yesterday were either shallow rooted or very decayed (like the one above), but when it falls on your house, they still make a big crunch!
Hope's parents arrived for a visit last evening. I'm taking most of today off to visit with them, since this is likely the best weather day until next week, and Hope's dad and I plan to get out boating somewhere...

Comments

Hope said…
Just a note for readers, it was confirmed an EF1 tornado on the ground for 2 miles, with winds between 60-80 MPH. see www.mymonticellonews.net for information.
10:22 AM
Lisa said…
Yeah; you guys need a storm siren, that's for sure!
5:44 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Late fall activities

Image
Well, I better get this blog post out before too long--hard to believe it is already December and the holiday season is upon us!  The picture above is from a visit earlier this fall by Beth--and her introduction to our new female tabby kitten "Charlie".  Charlie got her name from the neighbor boy who thought she was a he when this small stray kitten showed up in our neighborhood.  We believe someone dumped her when she was old enough to be on her own--she was definitely very friendly from the very beginning!  The neighbors "found" her first, but as they have cat allergies, were not going to take her in...Since our Bella had died earlier this year, we determined that we were going to wait until early 2024 to find a replacement cat...but as they say, you don't find cats, they find you...  So now we have Charlie! This has been a fairly conventional if very busy fall for us...Halloween came and went remarkably quick, with our traditional pumpkin carving (above) and ...
Read more

A new fence, a load, and a birthday boy

Image
Hope is standing next to the beginning of our latest (and now completed) project--the construction of a stretch of cedar fence along our backyard.  We decided to build this fence to give us some more privacy, and cedar pickets seemed cheap enough, so after constructing a wooden framework out of pressure treated pine lumber, we started putting up the pickets.  As you can see below, even Kenny pitched in: This wasn't a long stretch, only about 70 feet or so, and it went up quickly.  Below, you can see how it runs behind our shed: In addition to being pretty and smelling great, the cedar should be more decay resistant than untreated pine, and it provides a nice screen for the neighbors... We also went to a special fundraiser held every year for Arkansas Children's Hospital called "Log A Load For Kids".  This fundraiser is run largely by the timber industry, and all the proceeds are donated to the children's hospital in Little Rock.  Below are some...
Read more

June is for berry picking!

Image
  Well, at least June is for berry picking in Arkansas!  We were able to do a bunch of picking of blueberries, blackberries, and peaches following the completion of the 2022 summer dig (see last Bragg Family South blog post on that...).  Since I had the new Juneteenth federal holiday off, I took Beth and Stephen to a pick-your-own place about an hour from where we live.  Their plants were just loaded with fresh goodies, such as the blueberries shown above...and I think I picked my biggest individual blueberry ever: This picture isn't photoshopped--that is really how big it was!  We also picked a bunch of large blackberries that this fruit farm offered: I'm not sure what point Beth was making in the picture above--perhaps she was just observing how abundant and large the blackberries were, and how easy it was to fill our buckets: It took us only a few minutes to get pounds of these berries...and we were equally successful in scoring a bunch of nicely ripe peaches...
Read more