Powerless

Friday evening, major storm rolled across Polk County, Barron County and on East.

It was well forecasted to be potentially severe & it was. Whether it was tornadic or straight line winds will be hashed over by those in the know, whatever, it was very damaging.

During the worst of it, I took shelter in my tornado safe place, my walk-in closet, with transistor radio & flashlight.  It was pretty scary for awhile.

I have a good sized Maple branch down in the backyard, it is leaning on my roof, but no other damage to my home. My power went out at about 7pm Friday evening and still is out. 

Surrounding areas got hit very hard. Glenn's lake cottage had a big tree drop on the roof and yard. 5 holes in the roof & a bunch of cleanup.  Even more severe damage was caused by this storm in the town of Barron. Light posts snapped off, on the main drag, about 8 of them, I've never seen anything quite like it.  I football field sized corn storage building that had a bright red & white roof made of some kind of canvas, is now without half of that roof.  A dairy building with bright red steel roofing now has no roofing on the entire East roof slope, the West is intact.  The missing roofing is wrapped around power poles and trees, some of it across the state highway. And the list goes on...& that's just what I saw driving from my house to Glenn's cabin about 30 miles West of my home.

I'm hearing reports of lots of trees down near, and in, Luck.  Many also still without power. A rough deal for the annual Lucky Days celebration in town.

Two days without a shower is ok, but 3 is my limit. I took a 'shower' with 1/2 gallon of distilled water this morning. At least my head got clean,  and it was refreshing! (as in very chilly)

I used my transistor radio to listen to Brewers baseball last night & will do the same this afternoon.  I had hoped to be in Luck for Lucky Days this weekend but that's not going to work out.  Next year.

There are many in this area without power, the restaurants that have electricity are doing a big business.  The electric company is working hard, but it all takes time.

So, now we wait.

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Update: 4:15 pm and the power is back on, a 41 hour outage, but the sound of flushing toilets is music to my ears!