Tuesday, April 24, 2007

"It's going to be a bumpy night"

On this, the 13th anniversary of the devasating Lancaster, Texas tornadoes of 1994, Mother Nature left a little calling card that she, not us, rules!
All over the Dallas-Fort Worth area, there have been reports of funnel clouds and actual touchdowns (tornadoes) from two different storms - one in the afternoon and one during most of the evening.
No injuries have been reported, except for those with nervous stomachs, and rainfall amounts might exceed 8-9 inches in some locales.
The Metroplex has been in a severe drought for the last 2-3 years, with reservoirs, on which all the area depends for drinking water, as low as 13 feet down normal levels. All these April storms - this is the fourth such "stop the presses" major burst in the last 2-3 weeks - will do much to alleviate that drought condition.
Until the long, hot summer as Tennessee Williams wrote.
Old-timers in Lancaster, and those who left after 1994, had to feel strange about all this happening on this date. In fact, the storm struck Lancaster at 9:38 p.m. in 1994, and that community was being rained upon heavily when the clock moved to that position on the dial tonight. Deja vu all over again.
Sadly, here in Plano, no warning sirens sounded ... at least I couldn't hear them, and that sucks. I cannot imagine, with all stations reporting the severity of this storm, what it will take to ignite those sirens.
I know no one reads this blog, at least no one responds, so y'all probably don't care. But as one who went through it 13 years ago, my mouth got a tad dry tonight.
However, it IS the price to pay for cheaper housing and cost of living in North Texas.

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