Flash...Bang!

We had some crazy storms last night in our area. Everyone was silently (and some not so silently) freaking out thinking it was going to be as bad at April 27, 2011. Of course, it didn't help that James Spann, our beloved meteorologist, said that if 4/27/11 was a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, yesterday's storms had the potential to be an 8. Yeah. He said that. And of course, since anything out of James Spann's mouth is like gospel, people started freaking out.


Thank goodness it didn't happen again. Although, I did have my freak out moment while I was driving home from work last night. I work in Tuscaloosa and live in Pickens County. So I'm driving down Hwy 82 headed home. I keep the radio tuned to 98.1, because I know that as long as they are playing music or commercials, we are fine. (Continuous weather coverage means something bad is about to happen somewhere.) I heard the announcer mention something about the worst section of the storm coming through Aliceville, which is the other side of Pickens County from me (or where I was going).

Then all of a sudden, the wind got so strong and the rain was falling so hard that it looked like buckets of water being dropped on my windshield one after the other. Then the lightening was flashing so bright I was nearly blinded. I put my flashers on and slowed to a crawl, mostly because I couldn't see the shoulder to pull over. Then the radio guy says something about Echola and Elrod were taking the worst hit from the storm right then. That's exactly where I was! I was about a half mile from the Texaco in Elrod for those that know the area. Talk about scary.

Then as sudden as it came, it just went away. Right as I was pulling into the Texaco to let it pass, the rain suddenly became barely a drizzle. I was shaking when I got out of the car at home. Severe weather doesn't bother me. I guess I've never really been directly affected by it. But last night, I was scared! I was glad to get home. I had to fight myself to not wake up my sleeping child just to cuddle.

So there's my "severe weather story." The weather is supposed to be clearing up now, so I hopefully I'll have a sunny day off.

til next time.....