Thanks Kathy! I am very very sure my gear-head bro can get it going if it's just water in the gas tank. I am pretty sure it's just the water thing. It starts and actually runs for a minute or two before dying, so it's not the ECU. I dried the car out by parking it up a hill (so the water would drain off) and opening the hood and putting the top down. It's almost ready for Mark to come fix it. Thank you for asking Janis; I am glad you care. I am so glad Nancy is ok! The tracks are still under water. Sewer water. She needs to stay out if it. Have you seen the footage of the horses being saved? It's almost as good as the humans being saved.

Sorry to hear of others difficult weather related gardening. This has been a slow spring for us with cool weather slowing plants. Last week we had golf ball sized hail and now smashed plants are put into perspective as we deal with home damage. I've spent three long days picking up leaves and twigs from the lawn and gardens and have more to do. Some plants are fine as were protected by a large pine tree and one side of the house. Others have been pruned and may grow and bloom again. Many may not bloom again until next spring. All the clematis were pruned way down and this after I had just pinched them back. Lilies and iris took a beating. Still I have blooms though some of them are not as full as earlier many plants have a couple of bloom stalks. All my ws plants were still in containers so were protected. I spent a bit of time pulling hail out of the containers, didn't want those sprouts frozen or squashed. I think only one of them is completely gone. Many of my large pots were broken and plants needed to be repotted. More severe weather forecast for late today so will go out and put the lids back on the 2L and bags over the milk jugs. Planted poppies out on Tuesday and hope they will survive. I consider myself fortunate as many have lost their homes completely.

Suzie, It is a sad story about the firefighter. They haven't released a lot of details, but I think he was involved in a fire truck burnover, which is when a wind-driven wildfire overtakes a firetruck and literally burns right over it/through it/around it. My husband and our Asst. Chief survived one of those a couple of years ago and it happened while I was watching. The only "good" thing about it was that the fire moved so fast that by the time it registered in my brain that fire had overtaken his truck, he'd driven out of the fire safely and the fire was running towards the interstate and he turned and 'chased' it from behind. I hope to never see anything like that again. The big fire west of Fort Worth is near Possum Kingdom Lake in very rough and rugged terrain. The last I heard, about 30 homes there had burned and over 200 more were at risk and had been evacuated. Possum Kingdom State Park had been closed, and some roads were closed. There's also a huge complex of fires in the Wichita Falls area that involves at least 3 separate very large, major wildfires. Homes have burned there and evacuations have occurred. Some Love County firefighters are in the county next to Wichita Falls helping fight a different fire complex near Henrietta, TX. Before today's fires, Texas had had about a half-million acres burn just in the last 7 or 8 days. There's no telling what that number will be after they total up all the acreage today. Our VFD only had two brief fire calls today so I consider us very fortuante indeed because it could have been so much worse. Our county's burn ban expires next week and I hope the commissioners renew it (though I don't think they will because burn bans are very unpopular with some of their constituents). Carol, Our mesonet station goes out every time the wind gusts over 20 mph. It is out even when no one else's stations are malfunctioning. It drives me up the wall. Our wind was like a ocean today....choppy and full of big waves interspersed with periods of calm. As sundown approached, it seemed to calm down a lot...then began gusting really hard again. It can't seem to make up its mind what to do. The little wildlife puddle in our driveway had little choppy whitecaps. The birds bathed in it anyway. There was a big wreck on I35 in Gainesville this afternoon caused by the wind blowing tractor-trailer trucks around. Gainesville's highest recorded gust was 53 and ours was 54. Our weather is very similar to theirs, so when the Burneyville mesonet station malfunctions, I just check the station at the Gainesville Airport. I'm watching the 10 p.m. newscast and Steve LaNore just said we'll have near-record lows here tonight. Oh good, just what we needed. Also, he said the wind returns Sunday, so I'll try to get a lot done tomorrow in case Sunday's weather is yucky. Dawn

I wondered if they were sounding the sirens there an hour or two ago. There was a huge low supercell between y'all and Anadarko and Chickasha for hours. It was super low and super dark but never developed a tornado as far as I know. Every time I looked at the vorticity, they didn't show much of anything happening. I am not sure if the dark clouds you saw were from that one as it moved across the state or if you were looking at the late afternoon storm now moving into NW Carter County. I can see the Carter County storm from southern Love County. In fact, that's why I linked the warning on the thread above. I was outside working and saw some really dark clouds to my NW, said "uh oh" and came inside and discovered they were under a Tornado Warning. There's been lots of warnings today, and some damage that may have come from small tornadoes that touched down briefly, but so far today, Oklahoma has been fairly lucky. I hear thunder now. I know we need rain, but hope we don't get any more today. Our yard is a lake already as it is.