When we heard the weather forecast on the morning news we heard 20% chance of showers in the afternoon. Eh, no big deal, probably wouldn’t even sprinkle.
The afternoon showers didn’t happen.
We didn’t listen to the 6 p.m. news as we were watching something else on TV while we ate.
Shortly after dinner the RV repair guy brought over the new air conditioner he is going to install on Friday. Oh yeah, our AC wasn’t cooling as well as we thought it should so we called the RV Fixit guy and he ran some tests and sure enough we had a leak. Since we are still under warranty for the AC the factory decided to just send us a new one. Since it wouldn’t fit on RV guys work truck he wanted to bring it over this evening so it would be here for the installation. No problem, just lay it there on the patio.
All is good. And then……
It started to rain. No, no, it started to pour. Bob ran out to cover the AC which is still in the cardboard box with a tarp.
And the THUNDER and LIGHTNING were relentless. Many times it looked like daylight outside. I don’t know what time all this started but it wasn’t long after it had become dark.
And the wind came, gusting to 72 miles an hour.
And the hail started coming down and continued to do so for 27 minutes. Twenty seven long minutes. Hail hitting an RV is a horrendous sound. Deafening. You just think about the damage its causing. The RV, the truck. And it continues to come down and all you can do is pray for it to stop. And then you yell at God, “Enough! Make it stop!”….and it continues to come down. And then if you’re me you start to cry and you beg your husband to take you away from this place. You beg him to get on the road and leave this Valley far behind.
And it rained harder.
What we missed on the six o’clock news was the prediction that if a cold front from the north collided with a warm front from the south the result would be a huge, HUGE storm. Lots or rain, hail, wind, thunder, lightning, possible tornado… a perfect storm.
And it rained harder still.
Our RV sits in a little valley. The rain water pools here. Every time. Tonight the water rose very fast because we got 5 inches of rain in a matter of 40 minutes. Five inches. That’s a lot of rain in a very short period of time and it had nowhere to go. In no time at all we had 8 inches of rain all around our RV and truck.
Bob got on the computer to look at the radar screen and it wasn’t a pretty sight. And the storm was huge. And then the warning went across the screen. Tornado possible at McAllen Airport. Five miles away as the crow flies.
Finally the time between thunder and lightning strikes was getting longer which meant the storm was moving.
The rain was letting up somewhat, the winds diminished, thunder wasn’t as loud, the lightning wasn’t as bright, the hail was gone,,,the worst part of it was over. Just normal, regular rain remained.
A knock came at our door at 10:30. Scott, the park manager was making sure everyone was ok and to let everyone know that there was a meeting the next morning at 8a.m. for all park residents as there was lots of damage in the park and everyone would be needed to help clean up.
We had no idea of what we would see the next morning.
Our new AC…underwater.
No comments:
Post a Comment