It got pretty warm in here during the day and we had a lot of fans going. Most rooms had two fans each. Of course, it was only cool in front of a fan or below a ceiling fan. But thankfully it's not summer yet or an above average spring. We've lost our air a few times in the summer (and at least a couple times in winter) and it was kind of miserable. I don't know how people survived without a/c or fans before they were invented.
Saturday and Sunday were the warmest days in the house. (About 77° or 78°.) Saturday night was pretty uncomfortable, too. It only got down to about 74° inside. We live in a one-story house and can't leave our windows up at night. It was either Monday night or Tuesday night that it got down into the 30s. It was kind of cold in the house when I got up the next morning (about 66° inside), but tolerable with the proper clothing and blankets.
Anyway, as I said earlier, the repair guy came back Wednesday afternoon and got it fixed pretty quickly. It's been nice having a/c (we'll need the heat at night as it's supposed to get down into the 30s and 40s) and not hearing multiple fans running in the house.
The repair guy said that since our heat pump is so old (20), the next big thing to go wrong, like a compressor, could be it and we'd have to buy a new one.
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Thursday, April 12th, Kelly and I went to the park. We brought Milo (Charlie's Jack Russell) with us. He's getting fat and needs the exercise. lol Plus, he enjoys it. We didn't stay long, but it was a nice walk. I took only three pictures. Here's two of them.
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Sunday, April 15th, we had some wind and rain. They said there was a chance for hail, severe lightning, and possibly tornadoes. Sometime after 5:00 that evening, I heard a strong gust of wind (stronger than how it had been blowing), but didn't give it much thought. A few minutes later, I looked out the living room window and saw that the chair that's normally on our front porch was gone. It had been blown into our side yard. We get strong winds from time to time, usually with thunderstorms, but that chair has never been blown off our porch. Even with gusts in the 40-60 mph range.
Shortly after that, a tornado touched down about 10-15 minutes northeast of our house. It was a high EF-2, nearly an EF-3. It's not unusual for us to get tornado watches every spring and occasionally there will actually be a tornado, but rarely one as big and strong as the one that hit our city this past Sunday. Over 1000 structures have been damaged, some schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year (possibly longer) - students from those schools are being sent to other schools, many are without power and can't live in what's left of their houses. I imagine some houses will have to be bulldozed because there's not enough left to just repair. The worst the thing about it is the tornado hit a mostly low-income area of the city. Thankfully, only one person died. Though even just one death is too many.
It's quite a shock, not just because of the damage, but because it's so rare for this area to get a tornado like this. Even with tornado watches, tornadoes don't usually touch down and when they do, they're smaller than this one and short-lived. I read that tornadoes here usually only stay on the ground for about 5 miles. This one was on the ground for either 16 miles or 33 miles. (I've heard both.) A tornado touched down in South Carolina from this same line of storms that came through here. After the tornado in SC and then the one here, a tornado also touched down in a town north of here. It did some damage there too, but it's a smaller town with much fewer people and didn't destroy as many structures as it did here.
Clean-up will take some time - weeks or months. Places are being opened as shelters for those who can't stay in their homes. Churches and other groups are cooking meals and providing water, clothing, and other necessities. People are donating money to the Salvation Army. Money that will go directly to the people affected by the tornado. The electric company is working hard to get downed power lines up, poles fixed or replaced, and the power back on.
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I'm almost done reading After You by Jojo Moyes. Less than 100 pages to go. It's not as good as the first one (Me Before You), but I like it.
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~*~Nocturnal Queen~*~
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