The storm in the OP hit here, as well. Here being not just my town but my entire arklatex region. Which should really be named arklatexoma. According to the utility, it was the worst storm in their history. Of 540,000 power customers, 240,000 lost power. We lost power here off and on for days, because we not only had that storm, but storms each day for three days prior. Hail, tornadoes, wind, rain. A bazillion trees lost. The OP storm, here, straight line winds were reported by the weather service as 115mph. When the SHTF eventually, someday, we'll never make it, especially in the big cites, because losing power for several days, it was like major trauma for thousands. I had three portable generators and got two of them cranked and I saved my food in my fridges and freezer. This particular storm... I am a weather nut and watch radar constantly. We have a lot of storms. I saw this thing coming from Oklahoma and watched it and just west of here, it turned purple on radar over a large area. Which means either hail or a tornado. Or both. No sooner had I decided that this looks really bad, I clicked the Facebook button to warn friends and soon as I clicked, the uber load and irritating (but effective!) severe weather warning buzzed and I bout jumped out my chair. It said tornado warning, take cover. I made the post and immediately grabbed favorite guitars, papers, money and Rx meds and loaded that and my dog in the truck. Went through town and warned as many as I could but the sky looked ominous (green) and I said, gotta go! And I booked it south and hadn't gone 100 yards when it hit. From a dead calm to insane wind. Raining heavily and pushing my truck, left, then right on the highway. I boogied on out of town and was soon out of its path. An EF2 tornado was reported on some media just west of here and I suspect it came over us but didn't touch down. I note that radar turned from the purple to red right on top of us, so, that seemed to confirm that the tornado lifted or weakened. It was an interesting several days without power. I did a lot of research on whole house generators. Uh... $12k to $15k installed. I will probably not do that but buy a larger portable generator; you can buy big portable ones now. I am thinking of installing a window a/c in a room and buy enough generator to power that plus my kitchen and den. I could sleep, eat and be cool! Generating power for a central a/c requires a LOT of power. I am going to wait until Amazon prime day on July 11 because these things go on sale and you can save a bundle. I prefer to buy a tri-fuel gen, which works on gasoline, propane or natural gas. Natural gas hookup being awesome in that it's continuous and cheaper but it is does provide less wattage generated. I was lucky to get power, some still don't have it after a week. As for power-loss events, the worst I've ever had here before this was an ice storm and that was over fifty years ago. The worst in this area was another ice storm about 20 years ago and I did lose power here but about 50 miles away, it was horrific. Like, a war zone with so many thousands of trees down in a city. They lost power for WEEKS. Yikes! This was the strongest, most widespread straightline wind event I've ever seen. It covered hundreds of miles as it traveled and was very broad, probably 100-200 miles or more.
Scary stuff there Bill. Glad you are safe and well. Im a weather nut myself. TV is always on the weather channel in the morning.
