storm in the Twin Cities

[mellowtigger]

The Twin Cities experienced a sudden, brief, and powerful storm on Friday night a few minutes before 8pm.  We lost power at the house for nearly a full day.

During the wind gusts and downpour, my landlords were driving around the city.  They took shelter in a bank parking garage and shot some video of the water rushing into the storm drains there.  I couldn't find a way to share the video, so I took this snapshot of it (pictured on the right).  You can see power flickering in the fluorescent light.

We still didn't have power in the morning, so I drove out to work to see if there were issues at any of our 5 sites.  I saw tree limbs everywhere, tree trunks snapped in half, and trees uprooted.  I had to stop and turn around where a stream had flooded the road (pictured on left).  I didn't want to risk messing up my "new" car.  I turned around and found another route to work.  I spent about 2 hours sorting through what issues were fixable until such time as electricity and internet were restored at all sites, then I returned home.

It's amazing how little people know about enduring time without electricity.  It seems that not many people keep candles around.  And far too many people treat "lighted" intersections without power as a free and unregulated road.  People were just speeding on through intersections as if they weren't there!  When I realized how dangerous the roads were (because of ignorant drivers), I kept my car safely in the back yard until power was restored.

Kudos to the staff of Taco Bell #2365 who manned the rare fast food restaurant on Friday night that still had electricity.  They were clearly unprepared for much of the city stopping in for food all at once.  They handled the stress like true professionals.  My one suggestion is that maybe they should have just shut down the drive-through to force everyone to stop and park.  With the drive-through operating, though, the line was long and slow, so in-house customers could not exit until the slow parade of cars made advancement.

And boo to the city of Fridley which had several "lighted" intersections without battery power, without temporary stop signs, and without any reflective material on the light posts so people could even see by their headlights that an intersection was supposed to be controlled. With so much of the metro without electricity, there just was not the usual glow of city life to illuminate anything.  Intersections were quite dark that night.

Nothing is ever so bad that it couldn't be worse, eh?  Fun times.

Comments

[furr_a_bruin]

I'm not big on candles - I worry about fire. Instead, I have plenty of flashlights and other LED lights and a whole lot of batteries for them. Power outages are also a reason I have a POTS line with a wired telephone.

And you're right about ignorant drivers; the rule I was taught is that if the traffic lights are out, you treat it as an all-way stop.