El Derecho

On June 29, 2012 much of the United States learned what a weather Derecho is.  A storm carrying straight line winds nearing 100 mph formed in northwest Indiana and carved a path of destruction 600 miles long.  That night I actually moved the kids into the bathroom to sleep as I watched the windows bow in and out in my kitchen.  During a lull I went outside to see how things looked.  I heard trees falling around me...big trees.

We were lucky.  Our power did not go out for very long and we only lost a few trees.  My house became a party spot however, as the rest of the family had no power for over a week.  As I drove around the number of trees down and property damaged was staggering.  Below are the pictures of the small damage that we sustained in our yard.

There were branches everywhere, and we lost a number of the trees behind the shed

This is actually deceptive because of all the vines.  We lost several large trees heading down toward the river.  This was actually a good thing as we wanted to clear a path down anyway.

Quite a few shingles were lost as well

As I said, the power being out everywhere left my place as the hot spot for everyone.  That meant, everyone in the pool!