Tornadoes, Generators & God’s Grace

In the last 57 hours:

The tornado hit the west side of our house and got stalled circling the structure for 35 minutes. We must have had the honor of being the thing that brought the tornado to a halt, because there was very little damage in its forward path the other side of us. (How many people can make that claim?) The two derechos that immediately followed it each lasted about 20 minutes.

I’ve lived through two smaller hurricanes in Florida, but they were nothing like a tornado. Tornadoes may be in and out quickly, but you have no warning. It’s just there. Because of the windows everywhere in our house and our being caught up in the center of the tornado, there seemed to be no safe place to wait it out. It screamed on all four sides of the house at once, so we just stayed as close to the center as we could. The noise sounded like an ungodly banshee screaming and shaking the house. Couldn’t go to the cellar, because it was flooded with mud. The whole ordeal lasted seven hours, so no sleep was had and Ig called in to say he wouldn’t be at work that day.

It’s amazing that the house suffered no damage that we can see. It should have been flattened (or moved down the road, at least). But it wasn’t. Because God protected us. While there wasn’t anything we could do during the storm, we had our work cut out for us once it was over. Sorry for the bad pictures, but it was 6:30 in the morning, and the full property damage hadn’t yet been discovered. Isn’t everything nice and green out there?

FOOD & AN OLD GENERATOR
Our 24-year-old generator decided that it was too old to help us this time. Even though we run it every month with a load to keep it in “peak physical condition”, the load we asked it to handle this time was obviously too much for it. We had the generator on for several hours but were forced to turn it off before night fell on the first day. (Not a good way to cut down on the gas bill.) We couldn’t do much to help the 32″ refrigerator unit and 36″ stand-up freezer in our kitchen, so we threw everything possible from the fridge into the freezer and left the units alone to do their best. We don’t buy much pre-made or pre-packaged food, but the headaches meant no one had an appetite, anyway. We didn’t open the freezer and only went into the fridge on the second day to see what had gone bad. Amazingly little, actually, but we had interesting potlucks that day. Fortunately, as  no-meat vegetarians, our loss will be minimal compared to those with a freezer full of meat, since most of ours should refreeze just fine.

The temp inside the house caused heat migraines and complete exhaustion. The smell of hot people and dirty clothes was trying, but we managed to get the generator to work long enough before we turned it off to wash the dishes up.  All in all, we were really whiny and miserable through the two days and nights, but we’re feeling pretty blessed now that our power is back on (when so many others don’t have theirs yet). Quickly whipped and easily pleased, I guess.

WHAT NO POWER MEANS TO THOSE OF US WITH WELLS & SUMP PUMPS AND NO WORKING GENERATOR
There are times in your life when, by faith, you trust that God is with you. It happens often in our family. But that faith is sorely tested when a rural family’s power goes out. As a major-city-to-country transplant, I can tell you that I used to moan my way through power outages. I’m sorry for that now, because most of us still had water and dry basements. I know there are always others who have it worse, but they’ll have to tell their stories. I can only tell you what’s been happening here in our North Central Ohio countryside.

NO WATER. This is the biggie. Most rural homes have a pump and pressure tank run by electricity. You need the pump to get the water up the 145′ from the underground aquifer that Intel’s about to dry up. You need the pressure tank to get the water from ground level in the cellar UP through the pipes. (Can’t have a manual hand pump in this part of Ohio. The county and state won’t let you drink from the 25-foot-deep vein because of the amount of Round-up and other field chemicals in it.) NO WATER means you and your pets can’t drink, wash your hands/dishes/clothes, shower, or FLUSH THE TOILET. You can’t go to a neighbor or friend, because they’re having the same problem. (Go to a local store or restaurant? Not with the amount of trees blocking driveways and/or roads around here. Nice try.) Like many people, our budget has no line item for eating out or staying at a hotel.

FLOODED CELLARS. Without power, the sump pump that keeps our cellars dry can’t run. Period. It will take weeks to dry the floor (well, kinda floor) out enough to worry about the later mud removal. Our sump pump is for water removal only and doesn’t react well to mud and other solids. It means a lot of schlepping of mud-filled buckets up the basement stairs to the back of the two acres. And a five-gallon bucket of mud is really heavy. Oh, did I forget to mention that our water heater, well-head, pressure tank, and A/C air handler are all down there sitting in that mud? Without power, of course, we can’t run the fans and dehumidifier that help to dry it up. The humidity and smell that comes from standing mud in your basement only adds to the discomfort.

Then there are those rare times when you KNOW that God is with you, when His Presence is palpable. What we saw in the morning, after the wind had stopped, was humbling indeed.

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DOWNED TREE #1
That ancient, huge red maple (60-80 feet?) in the center of the circular drive is old and big enough to weather most things. It’s pretty crowded out there, since it isn’t far from the house or the road, so it shelters most of what you’d call our front yard (on two acres). On its way out, the tornado ripped/corkscrewed the top center portion of it off and threw it to the ground. The remains of the bird’s nest with the nestlings was very sad to see, but the rest was a clear sign of God’s Grace on our behalf. It landed pretty much in the driveway! It didn’t land on the two cars parked under it. Or the beautiful flower bed in front of it. Or the garage behind it. Or the heirloom-and-irreplaceable hedge next to it. Or the house, on the other side. It didn’t take down the phone line or pole in front of it. Or land in the street. It just dropped in the driveway. Sarah and Elizabeth tried to shift it off the grass a bit and took headlong falls when it didn’t budge at all (and they’re pretty strong). So, they trimmed as many of the leaved branches (to prevent some of the grass loss) as possible and moved on to the next one. (Sarah thinks that what’s left weighs 250-300 pounds.) Ig will go out with the chain saw this weekend to cut it into manageable pieces. Unfortunately, he’d had his MRI the day of the storm, and the IV contrast they use leaves him unable to lift much for 24 hours. After that, the temps of 97 in the shade (and not one of our downed trees is in the shade), precluded his working until it cools down. (Stage 4 Cancer patients are especially susceptible to kidney failure when dehydrated.) So, all in all, aside from the work to clear the yard, our only inconveniences are the loss of the shade offered by the top of the tree and the inability to use the circular drive. How’s that for seeing God’s protection of our family?

Click on any thumbnail to see the photo in full size.

 

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DOWNED TREE #2
One of the 40-50′ black locust trees in the grove outside our back windows broke at the base and fell hours before the storm. For no apparent reason. It was really weird. It’s not rotten. It just fell with a snap. Talk about God’s love! The downed tree did not: hit the house, crush the shed, land on the three bird baths sitting under it, hit the wooden clothesline pole, or take down any of our other beautiful shrubs or trees growing around it. In fact, it neatly, quietly and precisely landed in the twelve-foot gap of grass between the shed and the clothesline. And, as if that weren’t enough of a picture of God’s care, the placement of two of its branches left it resting a couple of feet off the ground, like it’s on tent poles. So, not one blade of our pampered daylilies that grow underneath it was broken. And the Brother Cadfael statue sitting less than six inches away remained untouched. Sarah and Elizabeth quickly cut off all the branches with leaves, to minimize grass damage. (Nice addition to the stash in the woodshed for our emergency wood stove.) Meanwhile, the birds love that we’re covering it in suet. The raccoons, too, are probably enjoying the elevated walkway we created, but they’d better enjoy it while they can. Once Ig’s ready to work again, we’ll get it cut up with the chainsaw and move it to the woodshed.

 

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DOWNED TREE #3
The sister of Tree #2 must have died of a broken heart, because the tornado took her down the next day. Another clear picture of God’s Grace. That tree did NOT take down the other trees around it, which is amazing. It landed in the small grassy area between the locust grove and the newer pin oak and locust. Didn’t even take a branch of the others down. It was corkscrewed (think whirling tornado) at the base and fell where it stood. There’s an established perennial garden under it with some irreplaceable plants, and only the Weigela bush got squished by the trunk. Not badly broken, but it’ll fix itself next year. The birds are sad about this tree loss, because it housed one of our special feeding areas for the mothers and babies. We’ll work on finding another one, as soon as the damage is cleared. It sure does look like a small tree in the photo. Wouldn’t guess it’s the same 40-50′, would you? Amazing what sense of scale is lost when you focus on one small area in space.

 

We found out today that the tornado that hit us was slow-moving but only 25 yards wide. We’ve done nothing but marvel at what did not get damaged, and that fully explains it. Why this but not that, when they’re only ten feet apart? Why did it do that but not this? You can walk the property and see its path. Three tornadoes touched down within 10 miles of our house. The third one was 100 yards wide and went mostly through woods and fields, leaving a lot of blocked roads but little structure damage. That width would have left us homeless and carless. We continue to marvel at God’s attention to even the tiniest details. Our house is surrounded by old, tall trees. In fact, we live on a corner of two county roads, and the maple on the corner is the oldest tree in the northern half of Knox County. It’s massive, but it only dropped half a dozen very small pieces of dead wood that it needed to lose and lost one lower branch. Even the four large bird feeders hanging outside the living room’s plate-glass windows stayed put. (We had no inkling that anything like this was coming when we went to bed so wouldn’t have thought to take them down.)

 

So, ask yourself, if you’d been two days and nights without electricity (in record-breaking sweltering heat) or water, what would you do FIRST when it all became available again? Remember, there’s no hot water for another 45 minutes and the fridge and freezer can’t be opened for hours. By the end of the second day, you start talking about it. It’s funny, really. It’s a dazed sort of existence, since, of course, you don’t know how much longer you’ll have to wait. So, you start saying things like “When it comes on, I’m going to  . . .” And an hour later, you think of something else. This time, because of the heat (most of our outages have been in the winter), we all knew what we wanted: a shower (cool or warm, it didn’t matter) and to FLUSH THE TOILET EVERY TIME SOMEONE WENT! (Turning the computers on wasn’t even on the list.)

We chose many years ago to simplify our lives where we could, in order to “stand tall” when things got complicated. I highly recommend trying it just a bit. Before the next outage. It’s humbling. And eye-opening. And you’ll be glad you did. Doesn’t mean you won’t be miserable for a while, but bad things won’t seem quite as bad when they do happen. And you’ll know God is there, because you’re standing still enough to notice. “Be still and know that I am God.”

N.B. The following is just a rant on my part. If you’re in a good mood right now, probably best not to read it. Smile.

UPDATE — To add insult to injury, we just got around to turning those computers on and found out that the power companies in Ohio deliberately and premeditatedly, with no warning, turned off all power to our house (and hundreds of thousands of others) BEFORE THE HEATWAVE HIT. (To be honest, being conspiratorial in nature, the three of us had figured this out when the power stayed off for the whole first day. We normally have an amazing rural cooperative electric company, and they never let us down before. Not like AEP and other large companies. Can’t say never anymore, that’s for sure.) And the companies aren’t embarrassed to tell you about it in today’s papers (which you see after-the-fact, once you get your Internet back up). The power companies need to invest some of their own money into their own systems. You know, the record earnings that they claim in their quarterly statements. It’s basic Consumer Math. Ha! And the powers-that-be think they’re going to nail our carcasses to the grid for everything. They can’t even keep our homes powered. What a joke. End of soapbox.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE — I won’t repeat what the newspapers are filled with about the situation in Ohio, but now the electric companies are admitting it was all planned a while ago but that they forgot to notify most officials and all the public. Even the hospitals, nursing homes and animal shelters were left powerless for TWO DAYS with no notice. Bah. Disgusting. By the time Intel and its lice get here, we’ll be waterless and powerless all the time, so we’d better just enjoy all this greenery while we can and take this as a harbinger of things to come. And count on the Peace of God which never fails . . .