Winter in the South

Last week, leading up to Friday, we kept hearing we could be in for some bad weather Friday night and into Saturday morning. 

All day Friday, it was blustery and warm. I wore shorts all day, which is not terribly unusual. My WFH (Work From Home) attire is generally casual. But in early December, one would think, to go outside, I would change into pants. 

Not necessarily where we live in Middle Tennessee. We could easily have an early winter snow in December (unusual but not impossible), but we could also have balmy days with temps climbing into the 70s. So it was shorts, inside and out, all day Friday. 

 I'm not always a devoted student of the weather, but with the winds picking up during the day, I glanced at the weather app on my phone and joined Wife watching the evening TV weather report. 

The meteorologists were telling us to beware of bad storms and possible tornados. A line was already forming to the west of us. 

Before I went to bed about 10:30, high winds had already done extensive damage to a nursing home building in west Arkansas, near Memphis, killing three. Tragic

Wife is more of a night owl than I. She told me to go to bed. She would stay up and come get me if she thought we needed to go down to our basement, our safe place when the tornado sirens go off. 

She went to bed somewhere between 2 and 3. She told me she was aware of the storms all around us, but had decided the tornado sirens and/or weather alerts on our phones would wake us. 

At 3 a.m. we were hearing those phone alarms. 

We got up and tuned in to one of the local TV stations. The meteorologists were tracking severe thunderstorms with high winds and were detecting rotation in some places above the ground, meaning possible tornados. 

Meanwhile, we could hear the wind howling. Over the years, we have taken the precaution of going to the basement for much less. With this kind of wind, it was time to go. 

Just as we were gathering a couple of blankets (although we hardly needed them -- it was 73 degrees!), the power went out. Our phones are both equipped with flashlights and Wife grabbed another high-powered one. 

We stayed in the basement about 30 minutes. Wife was able to pull up the TV station we had been watching on her phone for a few minutes, until the signal was apparently lost. We got just enough to know when the worst was in our area and, of course, we could still hear it. 

We went back to bed about 4 when the worst seemed to have passed over us. It took me a while to go back to sleep, but after I did, I slept until almost 9. I went outside to inspect things. There were lots of limbs, big and small, in the yard. The small, decorative Christmas trees on the front porch had both fallen over, and a couple of the wreaths on the windows were blown around from one side to the other. 

Our neighbors had the same situations and many of them were already out in their yards picking up the limbs. I soon joined them. 

Our electricity was still out. We had no idea how long that would last, so Wife went to a nearby convenience store and got some ice. We filled a couple of coolers with it and transferred some food from the refrigerators, holding out enough for some lunch. We kept the freezers closed. 

We had been planning to attend a Christmas program at a nearby church at 3 p.m. I don't know why, but it had not occurred to us they might also be without power, but as we pulled up about 2:30, we were met by a church member in the parking lot who told us that was indeed the case, and the 3 p.m. concert was canceled. There was another scheduled for 6, and they would have it if power was restored. 

We certainly didn't want to go home, so I suggested a visit to my favorite craft brewery, hoping they would have power. Blessings abound, and they did! It had been steadily getting colder throughout the day (a cold front was ushered in with the storms), so it was nice to have a warm place of refuge. 

The tap room at this brewery is not like a seedy bar, but more like a cozy little enclave where people are friendly and well behaved. Wife and I sat at a table and played three games of Rummikub (typically, she beat me every single game) while I enjoyed some of the tap offerings. (Wife is not a beer drinker but is a competitive game player and thoroughly enjoyed beating me in Rummikub).

We stayed there a couple of hours. On my phone I checked the website of the church having the Christmas program and, alas, they were still without power and the 6 p.m. performance had also been canceled. 

We stayed at the brewery a couple of hours and from there went to a nearby restaurant and had dinner. We arrived home about 7:30. Still no power. The outside temperature had plunged to about 40 and the overnight low was expected to dip a couple degrees below freezing, so we were bracing ourselves for a cold night. 

We lit some candles. I grabbed my laptop, which was fully charged, so we could watch a movie. 

About 15 minutes after arriving home, however, the lights came back on. Soon the house was cozy and warm. 

It is now Sunday morning and I slept soundly last night. It's about 29 degrees, but according to the five-day forecast, it will be 68 Wednesday. That's winter around here. 

Folks to the west and north us did not fare as well and are now dealing with the destruction and devastation storms and tornados can bring. My heart breaks for them.