Don't forget that today is the last chance to win the daffodils shown in my previous post. I will announce the winner in the morning.
Well the weather here has quietened down, thankfully.
Yesterday was wild...storms like that are really rare in Southern California. We get some rain in winter but that is about it.
Although I have to admit I do love a good storm....if I am safely indoors that is :-)
We had the best storms in Minnesota. We on the very edge of a copse and I swear with each drop of rain those trees grew and got so green. It seemed like they'd come into the house.
Of course with the storms came the tornado warnings...can't say I was keen on those much.
When we first moved there we stayed in a hotel while we scouted out where we wanted to live.
I had been there no more than a couple of days and Mick had tootled off to work when all of a sudden these sirens went off. Oh my goodness....I thought world war 3 had broken out or there was some alien attack or something.
So, still in my jammies, I went running up to the reception to find out what was going on.
It was a tornado warning...I had never experienced one before and had no idea that they set the sirens off to warn people. Was my face red :-) Still it gave the receptionists and other guests a good laugh.
After a few I became as complacent as the locals. At first the sirens would go off and I'd be terrified and for ages I kept a bag ready to go by the door in case I had to run.
One time the TV newscaster said we were to take cover, which was the strongest warning I'd heard. So I grabbed my pillows, to protect my head from falling buildings...like they would have done any good, and ran to the underground garage.
After half hour huddled up the corner and noticing that I was the only one there I decided to go back to our apartment.
Same with earthquakes here.....I was nervous about them before I moved but soon came to see that they aren't that bad at all....at least not so far !!!!
Well the weather here has quietened down, thankfully.
Yesterday was wild...storms like that are really rare in Southern California. We get some rain in winter but that is about it.
Although I have to admit I do love a good storm....if I am safely indoors that is :-)
We had the best storms in Minnesota. We on the very edge of a copse and I swear with each drop of rain those trees grew and got so green. It seemed like they'd come into the house.
Of course with the storms came the tornado warnings...can't say I was keen on those much.
When we first moved there we stayed in a hotel while we scouted out where we wanted to live.
I had been there no more than a couple of days and Mick had tootled off to work when all of a sudden these sirens went off. Oh my goodness....I thought world war 3 had broken out or there was some alien attack or something.
So, still in my jammies, I went running up to the reception to find out what was going on.
It was a tornado warning...I had never experienced one before and had no idea that they set the sirens off to warn people. Was my face red :-) Still it gave the receptionists and other guests a good laugh.
After a few I became as complacent as the locals. At first the sirens would go off and I'd be terrified and for ages I kept a bag ready to go by the door in case I had to run.
One time the TV newscaster said we were to take cover, which was the strongest warning I'd heard. So I grabbed my pillows, to protect my head from falling buildings...like they would have done any good, and ran to the underground garage.
After half hour huddled up the corner and noticing that I was the only one there I decided to go back to our apartment.
Same with earthquakes here.....I was nervous about them before I moved but soon came to see that they aren't that bad at all....at least not so far !!!!
Posts
I have to admit that if I was in an earthquake I would freak out- but I had to smile at your reaction to the tornado warning. Locals do tend not to take it as seriously. I always heard from my Mom that the time to be scared was when everything went dead silent- no wind, no birds, nothing. That was when we ran to the basement. I don't know why she said that- but I always believed her. My high school football team was the Anoka Tornados- so I have spent my share of storms on the front steps with the tornado sirens blaring waiting to see what happens. But I would surely be in a bathtub with a pillow over my head if there was an earthquake :)
ReplyDeleteHope your birthday was fabulous Jayne- thank you for making me smile today!!
We had the same experience while living up in Chicago. We were jittery at first for sure!!! We thought we were being invaded or something!! But luckily we had a finished basement so we would just lounge down there until everything passed by! Now I realize I much prefer the tornado warnings up in the north to the hurricane warnings here in the south! ack!
ReplyDeleteOh...hurricanes....now there is something I'd not live anywhere near the path off. I'd take earthquakes and tornadoes over hurricanes any day.
ReplyDeleteComing from England, where our weather is rather normal, all of this was a huge change for me :-)
Although, I have to say, in terms of shaking, the worst earthquake I ever encountered was back in England lol.
My first one here I was actually sitting on the toilet lol. It just felt like the toilet dropped away from me. Mick was on the couch and didn't feel it at all.
The next was much bigger but wasn't so much as a shaking but a rumbling. It took me a minute to wonder what was going on...I was in the workroom in my chair and again it kinda dropped from me. Once my little drawers started shaking I figured it out. And then...what to do...hang onto my little drawers full of bits of paper and wire...or hang onto Mick's mega expensive scientific equipment. His stuff won...I knew his oscilloscope was worth about $5000 so I hung on to that :-)
Now I barely even notice them at all.
It's funny you mentioned you thought WW3 had started when the sirens started up. Those were the old air-raid sirens from the Cold War era that were re-purposed to warn people about storms. I learned that from one of my history professors in college. Everyone was so frightened of missiles coming from Cuba that most cities and towns put up the sirens.
ReplyDeleteIn college we used to watch the tornadoes follow the main highway past town. Everyone used to say that the collective despair from the university students created a shield around town that protected us all from the tornadoes. There hasn't been a record of a tornado touch down in city limits for about 100 years or so. They did touch down in other places, but they'd skip right over the town itself. It was strange.
Where I'm living now they're used for both tornadoes and flash floods. I was used to them for tornadoes, but the flood sirens kinda confused me for a bit.
We did have an earthquake here right after we moved into this house. It was very strange because it was the middle of the night and at first we thought one of the cats was rattling about where it shouldn't be.
Ahhh...so that's why I thought that. yes they are the same noise as we had back in England ...although I only remember them from old war movies. We never had cold war sirens.
ReplyDeleteWe had a tornado touch down in Plymouth, MN...right by Micks work which caused a fair bit of damage but he was fine.
but then again even England has had tornadoes recently as well.
Climate change !