I think a tornado hit our neighborhood last night!

[Rajah]

Um, wasn't Alberto hitting Florida??

Okay, the weather as a whole yesterday was your typical Houston summer weather. Hot, wisps of clouds, muggy. Then out of nowhere, this tiny but strong storm spawns.

And goes right over our house.

65 mph winds, sheets of rain, and in 5 minutes it was over.

It took me a good 30 minutes to go what usually take 5-10 minutes, because the power was out at the interstate. Not only that, but power lines were apparently down on one side of the interstate because they were funneling people down to one lane, and on the other side of the interstate it was totally closed so traffic was backed up for miles. The winds had turned over an 18 wheeler on the freeway, and apparently it landed on another car. Ack! And miraculously, no one was hurt.

Got to our neighborhood, and fences are down everywhere, as are signs. Almost no one got away with no damage. In our case, 2 panels of our fence between us and our neighbor were totally down, and 2 more are leaning and will need to be replaced. On the other side, just a few loose boards. At the back, one panel is barely holding on.

Our neighbor's trampolene is who knows where. The springs are in our back yard, but last I spoke to her, they hadn't found the frame or the part you jump on (net?).

My DH has been building a shed observatory in the back yard, and it's been one mess after another through no fault of his. What it is supposed to be is a shed with a removable roof so he can put his telescope out there and operate it remotely.

The roof's removable alright. One half got removed into the shed, the other half showed up *5* houses away. Or, rather, the frame for that part of the roof showed up 5 houses away, and the inner portion showed up 6 or 7 houses down.

He was planning to finish the securing on it last night. One day too late.

And we have roof damage and chimney damage due either to the shed roof piece or to the trampolene.

Amazingly, no one was hurt that we know of, all pets were indoors and safe, and if anyone in the neighborhood had a broken window, we didn't see it.

Good grief, we had more damage from this freak 5 minute storm than we had from hurricane Rita!

Oh yeah, and when I got home I found that my mom's Shih Tzu (we're pup-sitting) had apparently jumped over the child's gate so she could get to the cats' litterboxes and bury her face in them. This crazy dog considers herself safer in a storm if her face is covered in cat litter. So I had to clean her up, too.

What a day...

 

[marydmjj]

Yikes! We never have those kind of storms. Glad the house didn't blow away.

 

[escape]

Wow! Glad you all are okay!

As for the dog.....

 

[anewvance]

Wow, glad everything and everyone is ok. Are they saying for sure or not if it was a tornado?

We had one a few years ago down the street from us. We heard it like a train coming through but it missed us. But the house down the street was a wreck and there was a truck in a tree!

 

[ckmommy]

Yikes!! I hope your Dh is able to get the shed put back together.

On the bright side you will not have to water your grass for a few days and it should be nice and green. We did not see one drop of rain here in NW Harris county!! The water man will be getting more of my money this week!!

 

[Rajah]

I haven't heard if they've officially called it a tornado or what, but since damage around our neighborhood was minimal yet in our neighborhood there were fences down all over, I'd say at least a vortex touched down!