I would really have liked to have gone to Hershey Park to see the superb firework display they put on every Independence Day. Several reasons why I didn't go. After several days of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) I thought it would be a tad warm even if it was down to the upper 70's in the evening. There were severe thunderstorms forecast and there's no way I was going to stand on a hill overlooking the park with a carbon fibre tripod with a chunk of metal on top (camera and lens). A minor factor in my reasoning was the wind direction, fireworks create smoke and with the forecast wind direction it would be blowing the smoke right towards my shooting location which would not be ideal for the photograph's. So I made up my mind not to go. Around 7PM I noticed it had started raining so I dashed out to flip the seat up on my lawn tractor so it wouldn't get wet. While outside sheltering I heard a large thump as a tree or large branch came down somewhere. More of that later. Standing in the open garage was quite frightening and the following video was certainly not at the worst of the squall.
I dashed back into the house getting soaked in the process and it wasn't much after that the power went out. It being a weekend and the 250th Anniversary of American Independence I don't imagine that the Power Company had a full complement of staff on duty to handle power outages. I reported the outage after about 1/2 an hour as it sometimes can be just the power company resetting a breaker or something. Looking at the outage map on the Power Company website I knew we were in for a warm night with no A/C, yeah I know I'm a spoiled pampered American nowadays but you get used to the comforts of A/C very easily. It was still out Sunday morning so I got the generator out, plugged it in and switched over from mains to generator in the basement and fired it up. We now had water from the well and even better hot water as the oil furnace fired up to heat the hot water tank. Still no A/C unfortunately as the generator isn't big enough to power the A/C. The ceiling fans certainly helped cool things off combined with opening opposing windows that had bug screens. With partial power from the generator we had cable internet and I was able to watch the British Grand Prix from Silverstone and I've just realized it's the 50th anniversary of my last visit to the British GP as Roy, Ken and myself were at Silverstone all those years ago. I remember we abandoned the car about a mile away and walked in rather than sit in a huge line of cars waiting to get into the circuit. The power was restored just after 4PM and I switched back to line power and the A/C was most welcome.
Sunday evening there was a hell of a thunderstorm and heavy rain, the wind didn't seem anywhere near as fierce as Saturday evening but the lightning was by far and away more intense than Saturday. The rain was much heavier and deposited about 5". Just as I was dozing off every iPad, iPhone sent out a loud Imminent Threat Alert regarding a Flash Flood Warning to stay off the roads. Great, I was almost asleep and I did sleep even through natures brilliant firework display and loud bangs.
Just when I thought it was all over, cooler weather and showers were forecast for Monday but it wasn't over. I had my car booked in for 8AM and as I went down the drive I found the way was blocked by a fallen Cherry tree that was not only partially blocking the driveway it was resting on the power lines. I walked back to the house to ask Kelly to phone the power company intending to carry on to my appointment. Getting back to the car this was no longer an option as the tree on the power lines was dropping burning branches on the road. Carefully avoiding the tree it was then I saw the barriers across the lane at the junction. At that point I went back to the house to call the power company myself to report it and just then a fireman rang the bell. We walked down and he said there was nothing they could do at that point because it was still live and dangerous.
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| No Trash Cans were harmed in this incident. |
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| I've got a Subaru, I could get out. |
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| Burnt branch. |
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| Making it safe. |
