Storm Aftermath

We had a huge storm come through late last Friday night. The winds were amazingly strong.  I saw a posting on Patch that some were 75 mph.  Many people lost power. We were blessed to not lose power for more than 5 minutes.  We did have one neighbor lose a window!  Thank goodness we were blessed to not have lost any. (Although if we did, we could get them replaced by insurance - which wouldn't be too bad)

There were trees down all over town. Multiple intersections had the street lights out on Saturday, all day.

Our local mall, Lakeforest, was closed most of the day.  My kids were hoping to go to Gamestop for a buy 2 get 1 free deal they were having over the weekend.  Gamestop was closed all day. 

Lots of my friends & some of my family lost power.  My sister, Erin, had her power come back on Saturday afternoon.  My Mom's house is still without power (it's Monday afternoon).

Rosie & I went to the grocery store after dinner on Saturday night.  Many of their shelves were empty.  I cannot believe how much food they must have had to throw away.  It looked like the ice cream had melted in the freezers.  I took a few pictures (as did Rosie).

Empty Ice Cream Shelves with drippings

Close up of Ice Cream drippings

Empty shelves where almost everything was on sale

Rosie's picture of empty shelves

Here are a couple of pictures from right around my house (taken Monday afternoon).

Trees broken & down in my parking lot

Tree across the street taken out at roots

Yesterday at church we had many visitors from other Wards (congregations) who didn't have power. As of Monday afternoon my parents still don't have power. This morning my Mom called to say her large freezer couldn't keep up with the heat & that if we wanted some of the food we could have it.

My parents have a generator to keep the freezer plugged in & a few lights on but it just wasn't enough. I offered to keep some food at my house for Mom. She declined & said to take whatever I wanted. Rosie was VERY excited to see what yummy foods I brought home.  My parents may not have power until Friday!  I offered for them to come to my house. They declined. Their house is pretty cool as part of it is underground.