Wild night

We had a pretty wild night here in northern Texas, and the weather outside is still very unsettled.  We've been warned to expect more storms throughout the day and into tonight.

Yesterday evening, when I headed for Old NFO's place for our regular Thursday night get-together, there were five big green garbage bins (the wheeled sort, supplied by the trash collecting company) strewn in the road between our house and the nearest intersection, tossed there by the wind as if they were mere child's toys.  I came back home and put our bins in the garage before setting out again, because I could see we were likely to lose them if I didn't.  The gathering broke up early, too, what with weather warnings blaring from our cellphones, and everyone went home to batten down the hatches.

Just a couple of months ago, we had new gutters installed, and improved the drainage system down one side of the house to better handle heavy rain.  Well, last night's storm was so heavy that it broke the new gutters, which are hanging from their brackets at one joint, allowing water to pour out.  The new drainage grate has been literally ripped out of the ground and upended by the force of the water, and the pipe leading from it to the bottom of our property has been lifted out of the trench dug for it for at least half its length.  I knew flood water had a great deal of power, but I must admit, I'd never expected runoff down the side of our house to get that strong.  The contractor will be here in an hour or so to inspect the damage, and see about fixing it.

To make matters worse, Miss D. learned yesterday afternoon that a relative has died.  We're going to have to spend a couple of days on the road, driving up for the funeral, and the same coming back home again.  We'll do our best to have things as ship-shape as possible before we depart, but serious repairs will have to wait until we get back.

Those of you in the storm-threatened areas of northern Texas, Oklahoma and southern Kansas today . . . take care, will you?  This storm system is nothing to fool with.

Peter