pic me pic me: June 2005

comfort inn

comfort inn
Originally uploaded by rainspiritlives.

little kids and their puppy on a slide

IMG_1810
Originally uploaded by rainspiritlives.

Oh yea,

This is a picture of my yard deco....now he's a pirate! I'll have to make him a patch for his eye :o( I can't believe that the hail took out just his one eye.

Hi everybody. I didn't take many pics of broken windows or the hail damage to automobiles. I was mostly struck by the magnitude of the damage to the trees and the carnival. One of the carnival pictures is out of place but you will get the jest of what happened here last week on June 18th 2005.
People at the carnival thought I worked for the newspaper (obviously they don't know my writting skills) so they told me their stories and let me into their mess. I was taken by their loss and what it meant to them. One woman told me that had ridden the carousel that you will see, for the first time when she was 5 years old. She was 15 years old when she took it down for the first time. She and her husband were married on the Gravitron. She has BA's in Brittish litrature and english. She goes to college during the winter and she and her family work at the carnival during the summer.
The carnival workers besides being devistated were suprisinly optimistic. They had rides that could never be replaced, one that they could have fixed in Colorado and borrow one from somewhere in Billings Montana. Most of them said they hoped they would be up and running in a short amount of time.

I have never been in the midst of such a storm. I have experienced powerful storms and the thunder ALOT louder (alltitude i'm sure) before but I never woke up to this kind of mess. Lucky I would say. Loved the storm..hated the aftermath. I just couldn't get over the trees! They were ripped, bent, snapped, yanked out of the ground, lawn and all. Most of all of the trees were big trees! I was just amazed. I know it wasn't anything compared to disaters that others in this world have had to endure but it is as close as I would ever want to get to one.

Jerry spent some of his Father's day helping out one of Julie Hellman's neighbor by bringing his chainsaw over to cut up her tree that had fallen into her garage. Weird thing about that house was besides the tree, the doorbell was broken off.??

IMG_1695

IMG_1695
Originally uploaded by rainspiritlives.

Palm tree?

This is the storm that came through on Saturday (18th) night. Actually I should say came ripping through. As you might know I LOVE rainstorms especially thunder and lightning. I was cheering the storm on UNTIL the hail came pounding down. Some say there was a tornado or saw a tornado in the sky but didn't hit the ground or that it was a microburst. None of which has been confirmed. So your guess is as good as mine.

The next morning Sarah and I went about the town and these are some pics that I took.

IMG_1690

IMG_1690
Originally uploaded by rainspiritlives.

Trashed Trampoline.

I was looking out my window while the storm was raging and I could see this already down. In the morning we went out to see the damage and it had turned the boat completly sideways the trampoline had been picked up and moved with its legs all down except for just one. If you can see the white foam thing in the picture, it is the foam from the inside of the trampoline pad..we still can't find one of them.

update! Sarah's friend Caleb found the last foam piece last night at the way end of the block in a church's playground. If we put humpty dumpty back together again will she fly?

There was a picture in the paper of a trampoline that had been picked up and literally stuck into the side of a house by it's legs.

IMG_1693

IMG_1693
Originally uploaded by rainspiritlives.

Will we have to do this again tommorrow?

IMG_1701

IMG_1701
Originally uploaded by rainspiritlives.

This is a picture that I took at my friends trailor court. I can't enlarge it on here but if you could just imagine it looked like someone had just opened fire with a machine gun. Windows, blinds, siding and the skirting were gone from a lot, but not all of the homes. 2 were actually deemed totaled in this park.