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April 24, 2007 Wind 
I got into work late yesterday morning. I do most mornings, now. It has to do with, oh, not wanting to walk around getting dressed while Erik is having a shower, or vice versa; so I wait until he's downstairs before I get up, and so I'm always late, these days. Sometimes I work through my breaks or lunch and leave at the regular time. Sometimes I stay late. Yesterday, I stayed late. I was driving home and had passed Bathurst when the showers turned to hail, then a driving wind and sheets of rain. In the distance to the north I saw a sudden blue flare, then another one. "That doesn't look like lightning," I thought. Then the stoplights in front of me went out. Traffic slowed. I inched through each block, skittered through each intersection, hoping that everyone would play nice and let people pass through safely--they didn't, always, but I was fine. The rain grew heavier, and the wind was strong enough to shake the car. I'd jam on the brakes, as if the wind would care. Why couldn't I have left on time today, be home already? Traffic slowed more. On the west side of the street, wooden power poles were tilted at dangerous-looking 45-degree angles. "That doesn't look safe. God, I hope the wind doesn't blow them over on to someone." Two blocks further north, the wooden power poles on the west side of the street were snapped in half like toothpicks and lying all over the road. One had landed on a car, scraping the paint off the roof and scoring the metal. The car was empty. The road was packed with ambulances and emergency crews directing traffic around the accidents and the downed power lines. "So that's what that bright blue flare was. I didn't think it could be lightning," I thought. I wished, yet again, for the foresight to put kleenex in my car. A good day for me with a long drive home was a very, very bad day for a lot of other people. Slowly all the cars inched forward, past the chaos; and once it was behind me I sped home in the suddenly lightened rain. There was Frances, waiting for me in the garage, listening to the Thunder Monster. "It was pretty scawy, Mummy," she said. Posted by Andrea at April 24, 2007 5:49 AM under EMAIL this entry (comments fields are below this section) Comments Glad you're okay, Andrea. I used to drive a lot to work and school when I was first married. Every so often I'd have a moment like that - where I'd think, "Why didn't I leave early?" and it turned into "If I had been on the road three minutes earlier..." And where my first thought was usually about myself, my second was always "I hope they'll be okay." Posted by: amy at April 24, 2007 6:46 AM
That was a scary storm. We were setting out for a short drive right when the rain started up, and Snuggly Girl was really worried about tree branches landing on us. But we made it safely. When we headed home a couple of hours later, the sky was blue and calm. Posted by: Madeleine at April 24, 2007 9:18 AM
Here in Guelph, the storm also occurred on my way home. I also kept pushing the brakes down to try to stop the shaking of the car, and it sounded like the water was hitting the car like a crashing ocean wave. I saw branches fall next to my car. It was scawy. Posted by: cinnamon gurl at April 24, 2007 9:34 AM
I'm glad you made it home okay and hope that the others you saw get home soon too. Posted by: liz at April 24, 2007 11:10 PM
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