Natural Disasters

Well it has been an interesting week here in Midlothian/Virginia/East Coast. On Tuesday we started off with an earthquake. I had just come downstairs from getting Nate out of his crib from his nap. I was standing in the kitchen and my three older kids were playing in our Craft Room. I felt the house start to shake a little and thought it was our washing machine on the spin cycle. As the shaking got more intense and the walls started creaking I yelled at the kids, "Get under the table". We all dove under the table and huddled together.

Thirty seconds later it was all over. My heart was racing. A 5.9 earthquake had just shook my home and family. But, all was well. There were a few aftershocks, but I didn't feel any of them.

The quake caused some cracks in the top of the Washington Monument.



and the DC Temple had some damage to it's spires and facade. I had some small glass figurines on a shelf that tipped over. It wasn't really that bad. I guess it mostly made me think about how fast something like that can change your life.

Then comes Saturday . . . and Tropical Storm/Hurricane Irene. We had been watching the reports the few days previous because we have a beach house rented in the OBX (Outter Banks, NC) starting tomorrow. The forecasts got scarier as Irene came closer. However, we are in Midlothian (west of Richmond), quite a ways inland. I wasn't too worried.




This was taken at about 3pm. The swings on the play set were not even swinging yet. But it had been raining ALL day long (at least since 7am).

The wind started to get stronger and Ben went out (in his "Hurricane Hat") every couple of hours to assess any damage to our house.


At this point we started to get word that quite a few of our friends were without power and had been for a few hours already. The trees in our neighbors yard started swaying even more and a little while later we found the first bit of damage to our property. One slat from our gate got knocked out by a flying branch.


As we watched the news and facebooked and called friends we found out that a LOT of trees were coming down. Trees were blocking roads and breaking fences . . . trees were landing on homes . . . trees were landing on homes of our FRIENDS. Then it started to get scary.

At about 7pm we lost power. That made the next few hours drag on. This was the point at which the wind was the strongest and the reports were bad. Irene was hitting us the worst during those few hours. It is predicted that by midnight the worst will have passed. We played games and read stories and ate bedtime snacks all by lantern light. After we had the kids all tucked in . . . the power came back on. SIGH.

Things started looking up again. Ben said, "Things seem so much brighter with the power back on." -- you know what he means.

Now (10:30pm) the winds are starting to settle down a little. The power is back on. My kids are all tucked safely in their beds. And I am so grateful that we are safe tonight in our home. It has been a long day full of wind, six inches of rain (and still coming down), prayers, explanations to young children, tree damage, and hugs so tight that you never want to let go. We have been truly blessed this week.

Earthquake . . . hurricane . . . I just hope the locusts aren't on their way.