G.M.,

We're fine but we had a pretty rough night. We had 3 to 4 separate waves of storms after the NOAA weather alert went off to let us know that bad weather was approaching from Jefferson County.

Just about 3" of rain, high wind, power out, some tree limbs down, but nothing serious at our house.....well, except for a serious lack of sleep.

Marietta had more damage in town than we had here. There was a strip of power poles along Hwy 77 south of town where one pole went completely down and then quite a few others snapped in half. We got our power back more quickly than Marietta did, I think, 'cause our particular power lines run up to us from Thackerville, instead of down from Marietta. We saw lots of ornamental pear trees split right in half, which is typical after a big windstorm.

We made a quick run to Ardmore to Lowe's this morning so I could get bags of mulch. Figured if I couldn't plant, I'd mulch what's already been planted. You wouldn't believe how many trampolines we saw in the middle of nowhere.....fields and pastures.....alongside the road (with no houses nearby).....piled up on top of cars or sheds or swingsets or fences. None of those trampolines looked salvageable.

During the worst of last night's wind and rain, (before the power went out....so we still had light to see by), our trees and shrubs were blowing in a rotating manner, but none of the trunks snapped. It is very wet and windy out there today.

I am operating on a severe sleep deficit. I never really went back to sleep after the NOAA alert went off because every time I was almost asleep, it went off again for a total of 3 or 4 times. At least mulching is a easy task and I don't have to think real hard to to it. LOL

Did you know the Roosevelt Bridge over Lake Texhoma was shut down half the night and most of today (one lane is currently open) because all the power lines and poles are covering the bridge?

The stuff during the night was scarey, but I was more afraid of the storm cell that was moving our way sometime after 8 or 8:30 last night....it was the one that spawned a tornado or two near Breckinridge, Texas, and then very slowly and laboriously made its way towards us. Just south of Gainesville, though, it veered southeast towards Whitesboro. We had watched it on KXII for an hour or more and I was just relieved it slid south of us. On the radar at the time, it looked like we'd take a direct hit, but we didn't. That same cell may be the one that did all the damage that has been reported near Denison.

It looks gorgeous outside today, but the wind is really blowing hard out of the west.

Dawn

We got 4 inches of rain overnight with much lightening. FOr a while it looked like a rotational storm was heading right out way from Muskogee, but it petered out. I watched the TV coverage until 1am when the warning was lifted. We were already plenty wet. Had planned to till the corn patch tomorrow and plant Monday but it's way too wet again. I still plan to set out broccoli plants Monday.

I was concerned for our youngest son who lives in Ft Smith but he said the south end of town escaped the tennis ball size hail that hit Van Buren and North Ft Smith. I guess rain is better than drought but I sure wish it would come more gently--and quit when we have enough. Dorothy

When I finally went on out today to see what all had happened I found small pieces of leaves all over my front storm door, sides of DS's Jeep and all around the yards. It is boggy and nasty out there but i went all around and really didn't find any damage in our yard.

I have no idea if it was just the wind or hard rain or if we actually got some small hail which beat those tree leaves off like that. We have few trees and the Bradford pear is still standing so it was neighbor's trees which got hit.

My mother called and said she lost her small tree which shaded her patio from the brunt of the west summer sun...she was sad about that. Now she will be more limited as to what kind of patio plants we can give her for Mother's Day.

DH found a metal building from Lowe's off in a ditch...and said there were trees down in our neighborhood. Several Bradford pears split and others down or broken.

We had close friends at the lake! I need to contact them and see how they made it. I know some of them headed for home and their cellar but I am afraid the older ones may have stayed. ugh.

I need to contact my young friend who lives south of Denison to see how they are. They live in a very rural area with lots of trees. She was just here visiting me yesterday.

I have not talked to my sisters who also live rurally but mom said they both have tree limbs down. I am sure they will have lots of clean up to do.

Yes I watched that storm tracking in from Texas too Dawn and if computer had not been shut down I would have posted a LOOK OUT DAWN post....lol.. but I knew you would be on top of things I also saw it was going to the south of you. Thank God!

We managed to get through this really well and I am so thankful.

Hope no one got very serious damage!

Now if we can just keep the frost off everything.....
Dawn do you think we should put Christmas lights in our peach tree again like we did last spring? It worked great for us last year and we had a decent peach crop.

G.M.

Like most of you, we had a rough night -- at about 10:00 we were going for cover and then at the last minute it dissipated -- thank God. However, our weather radio went off 4 or 5 times, so I am very sleep deprived. We managed to get through this with no damage so I am very thankful. The power was out for a little while and this morning I didnt turn the tv on before leaving and I got to the bridge and it was backed up, for literally, at least a mile. . . only one lane working. After sitting and waiting to cross for a little over 10 minutes I seen 3 poles that had snapped -

You would think I'd be used to weather like this coming from the panhandle . . . but I'm not : )

I have family in the Marietta/Enville area and a tree fell on their house and they said they had lots of tree branches everywhere.

I need sleep : )

Melissia

G.M.,

Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to put the lights in the trees for the cold nights this weekend. I'm going to wait until Sat. to decide....'cause maybe they'll change the forecast. (But, if they did change it at the last minute, would I trust the new forecast?)

I hate that your mom lost her shade tree.

Melissia,

After the storm veered away from us and towards y'all, I was hoping you were watching the radar and ready to take cover.

When I came downstairs this morning and turned on the scanner, I heard 4 fire departments out in the East Side/Enville area: Criner Hills VFD, Greenville-Overbrook VFD, East Side VFD and Enville VFD, but I didn't hear enough to know if they were at a fire, an accident, downed power lines/trees in the road or what. That side of the county may have had a little more damage than our side of the county.

And, it sounds like you and I had the same sleep-deprived night. Well, today was a better day (except for the wind) and I hope tonight will be a more peaceful and restful night for all of us.

Dawn

We were lucky here in Pontotoc County. It seems like when the storms reach us, they tend to split in half and go north and south of us. I was headed out to put my car in to garage when the thunder and lightening suddenly blew in and I changed my mind. It spit out a few small bits of hail, lots of high winds, serious lightening and thunder for about 45 minutes. There were several sights of rotation around us, but nothing came of it. No damage that I could see, just leaves and smaller limbs from the trees. Its been said more than once, 'if you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, just wait a few minutes and it will change.'

This is just so strange.. so many of us here are around the same area..

I also receive Kten and Kxii news.. I am located in the upper Northeastern part of Johnston County. a mile from Atoka Co. on HWY 48/7.

I heard about the poles down on the bridge over Texoma, but I have been away yesterday and did not know it was that bad.

Like everyone else, it was a sleepless night..
glad it has moved on..

We do a lot of our shopping in Durant, sometimes Ada and Atoka.

pretty neat that so many of us are around the same area, when I find Other people from Oklahoma, they are always from Northern OK or OKC.

Some of you said something about waking up to weather reports, or Weather raidos,and NOAA alert
Do they really work in our area, and if you lose power, do they stay on?
do they drive you nuts.. INFO please.
is there a cost per month to have one to NOAA?

(we are on PSO) and the wind can blow a leaf off the tree are we are out. LOL

I get really tired of staying up all night long when we have bad weather coming in..

Kirts....I live in Ardmore, so yes we live pretty close. The one I live closest to as far as I know is Dawn. We are about 30 miles apart. There may be others closer but I am not aware.

The NOAA weather radios are wonderful. I think everyone should have one! You can program in the counties near you so that you know what is happening close by.

For us storms normally come out of the SW or W so we program in those counties. It goes off when bad weather is coming close to those counties. When we first got it...it went off too often but after we set the counties it has been great. It has a battery back up so as long as you keep fresh batteries in it you are good even if you lose power.

I am not sure if we got ours at Walmart or Radio Shack. But they are not expensive and there is no charge for using them. They just pick up the broadcasts from NOAA is all. They are small so don't take up much room. Mine is 5 X 6 inches. It does have a small telescoping antenna, like the older cordless phones. You can listen to a weather report anytime you want. But when there is bad weather it makes a sound so you know to go listen to it.

I am encouraging my sister who lives rural and could hear no siren to get one. We live in town but for some reason we cannot hear the sirens if we are inside so we needed one. They are well worth having.

G.M.

Kirts,

I agree with G.M. that a NOAA weather radio is a wonderful thing to have. Nowadays they are not just weather radios, but are All-Alert radios and can also transmit other types of alerts, including Amber Alerts for missing children and Silver Alerts for missing senior citizens considered at risk.

We bought ours at the Radio Shack in Ardmore and they programmed it for us after asking which counties we wanted programmed in. We have Love, Jefferson, Carter, and Marshall Counties from Oklahoma programmed into ours and Montague, Cooke, and Grayson Counties from Texas.

There are nights it is annoying to have it go off several times in one night, but I'd rather be awakened by a weather alert than by a tornado hitting the house. When a huge line of storms is moving in our direction but hasn't gotten to us by bedtime, we can go ahead and go to sleep knowing that an alert will wake us up if dangerous storms are approaching us.

When a alert goes off, I usually get up and turn on KXII and look at the radar if they have it on the screen. (If they don't have it on the screen, I figure the weather isn't 'that bad' and go back to sleep.) If the radar looks frightening enough, we will go to the tornado shelter. I think we have only used the tornado shelter 3 or 4 times in 8 years, and 2 of those were storms that did, in fact, have small tornadoes that did minor damage in Love County (but not at our place).
On a night like Wed. night, when the power has gone off and the NOAA radio has to operate for several hours off its' backup battery, you do need to remember to replace that battery ASAP the next day since you don't know how much juice it has left.

NOAA tests the radios once a week, usually at noon on Wed. so that they (and we) can be sure the transmitters and receivers are both doing their jobs.

Dawn

KFOR (Channel 4) in OKC has been advertising NOAA weather radios on sale at Homeland and United grocery stores for $29.95. I've seen something else advertised lately that Wal*Mart has them for $25.00. They are the Midland radios, which is the brand I have. I don't know if that is good price or not, as I bought mine on eBay a few years ago and don't remember what I paid. But, IMO they are well worth the money. I feel much more secure having a NOAA radio to wake me up in the middle of the night so I can get to the cellar before a tornado strikes here. We're out in the country and can't hear the tornado sirens. I'm wanting to buy my daughter a weather radio as she is young and doesn't have enough sense to fear tornadoes like I do. :)