The Storms

The Storms

June 17, 2014

Hello,

The weather radio went off a couple times at work yesterday, but the storms at that time seemed to be south of us. I was glad to drive home with no rain under a seriously cloudy sky. It rained a little just as I reached Cedar Rapids city limits, but it was bone dry when I got home.

Leroy and I did our usually reading and crossword puzzle before getting into bed. I put the cream in my eyes to combat the dryness. That means I do not see very well for a time as I look through that blurry stuff. I had not quite drifted to sleep when the outdoor weather siren went off. Leroy and I both lay there a while and listened before we got up to see what it said on TV. The announcer said that we did not have to expect a tornado as the siren comes from another town and CR was not included, but server thunderstorms were expected so we should be cautious.

A bit later they announced that people in CR should take cover immediately. So Leroy and I put on some clothes, gathered crank flashlights, basement keys, and shoes. We then went down the stairs. I cannot remember how I happened to be the one outside trying to see the keyhole in the dark, but Leroy had gone back inside. He is more familiar with this lock. I finally got the key in, but could not turn it.

I came back in the porch to learn that our landlords had said we could go down through their place to the basement or we could sit in their kitchen next to the stairwell as they were doing. We elected to go all the way down. After the allotted ten minutes without hearing much wind and just rain we came back up. As it was we ended up staying in their kitchen for half an hour or more listening to the rain come down, but still not much wind.  It had rained over an inch in 20 minutes. Robin braved the rain because she had to know and she shared the knowledge.

After being up for about an hour Leroy and I went back to bed. This morning I checked our rain gauge which proclaimed a total of four inches of rain. We needed rain, but I thought an inch a week would be about right.

Paula