Denise, I am so sorry! We have been getting a few of these severe thunderstorms around our area everyday as well. We live in the woods and when trees fall we always hope its away from the house. What usually happens is that they fall out on the main road and take the power lines down with them. We are planning to get a generator this year, it happens so frequently here.

Hi Denise,

Very sorry to hear what happened to some of your plants and the screen in your green house. That is one strong storm. 75-100mph is Cat.1 hurricane here in florida. It's weird because we just had a thunderstorm hit us about two hours ago, came out of nowhere. Winds wasn't quite as stron as yours, but knocked down some of my potted plants, limbs off the trees. I didn't have time to get my hoyas down from the Oak tree, it was swinging like a pendulum...but surprisingly enough, they hung on and never fell off the tree.

Hope everything turns out fine, and no one in your neighborhood was hurt. I'm sure your plants will recover, you will be giving them lots of TLC...

Bihai, I've noticed a lot of people in our area that have generators and I'm thinking it might be a wise investment... Since our power wasn't off TOO long, we didn't lose anything in our fridge/freezer, and it wasn't terribly uncomfortable to sleep. But there are quite a few close residents that will likely be without power for a few to several days, and I can't imagine how tough that would be! So I'll likely be looking into getting a generator as well...

Pug, I get the feeling that you guys usually get some warning about hurricane weather. I was feeling pretty safe in that the local channels were saying that Fri. would be fairly "calm" and, I belive their word was "uneventful" weather-wise. HAH!! Goes to show that you can't trust those guys!! But it does give me lots of serious empathy for the hurricane winds!

Well, I'm still feeling grateful that we had no damage to our home... I can certainly live with replacing some plants. A couple of 18-year-olds died in a town next to us (Council Bluffs, Iowa) when a tree fell on their car, so I'm feeling lucky, really...

Today, I found one of my Hoya cuttings had blown to the other side of the deck. Had to re-plant it. Amazing what some wind will do!!

Denise in Omaha

Denise,
I am glad you didn't get the damages. I went without power for 5 days during Hurricane Charlie, it wasn't as bad as some people who didn't have a pool. We were able to cool off in the pool but I would rather have had a generator to keep my food frozen. We had a good cook out with the few of our neighbors LOL. Tried to make the best we could. We did buy a generator that year, never used it but my FIL used it. We have to count our blessings especially in a tough times because when we look around there are always someone worse off then we are.
Jan

We were without power for 21 days in 2004 after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. My husband lost his saltwater reef tank, all the soft and hard corals and fish he had collected and nurtured, we lost everything in our freezer and fridge. We could stay here during the day, we do have a pool but after the first week it was not able to be used for any human use. We had to stay in a hotel that had power at night. My greenhouse had a foot of water in it but surprisingly I lost no plants, it receded pretty quickly as we drain downhill to a creek in the back of the property. We have vowed to get a generator every year for the last 4 and now we are going to.

Thunderstorms here in North Central FL blow up quickly and out of nowhere due to the sea breeze convergence zone that sits right over us. We are in the almost exact center of the state, 45 minutes from each coast, and when east coast and west coast seabreeze meets, we get lots of fireworks.

There was a very severe storm here on Friday, it was raining torrentially and I had to go pick up my daughter from summer band at the school...on the way home down our road we almost had to stop and pull over because I couldn't see the road, but then a huge bolt of lightning struck right on the side of the road by the car! We saw where it touched the ground and it made flames for a brief instant. The whole road and the car shook, and the crack of noise was deafening. My ears were ringing. AFter that I was scared to pull over in case a tree fell or something. We found out the next day that a local park ranger in a nature preserve area called Paynes Prairie was killed when a tree blew onto their car during that storm.

These summer storms are nothing to fool with no matter what state you live in, and they are almost impossible to predict sometimes. Just glad you are safe and have power back!

Denise,
I'm glad you and your plants made it throught the storm OK. I always figured plants can be replaced so if family and friends made it through you're lucky.

I think not being home watching plants and property being destroyed is best. Our storms seem to come at nights so I can't see what they're doing and I've learned not to put to much stock in what the weatherman says.

We've been without power for up to 5 days, twice but both times during the winter with ice storms. So don't have to worry about food spoiling just ourself and plants freezing but surprisingly I didn't loose any plants either time.
Now I always keep wood handy for the fireplace so it isn't to bad, the worst thing is not having power to do anything.
we've gotten so dependant on electricity it seems you can't do anything without it anymore.
Jo

Denise,
Sorry to hear about the bad storm friday. Glad you and your family are safe.

We bought a generator last year because of loosing power due to a storm.

shanna

oh OUCH - to lose a whole saltwater tank, believe me I know all the work, the money, and the nurturing that goes into that "little" hobby. I don't feel justified in complaining now if a storm comes in and blows a few of my plants over. I am just glad we don't get hail here.

It's certainly been a stormy year - for most of the country, really! My brother lives in Indianapolis, and they've had tons of rain and severe storms, too. I took my dog (Lucy, the 92-lb wonder-fluff German Shepherd) for a walk today and was utterly astounded by the number of very old maple trees that were uprooted in our neighborhood. It was terribly sad to see them lying on their sides...

But, wow, I'm feeling lucky Bihai!! 21 days w/o power - yikes!! I think we're pretty lucky in that we live very close to the University of Nebraska Med Center and another big hospital. I have a feeling they work their butts off to get this area up-and-running because I'm sure it's very, VERY expensive for these hospitals to operate on generators...

Thanks to all for empathizing! I have a feeling you all know my pain from personal experience!!

Denise in Omaha