Agony and Ecstasy Part I

I'm finally getting to blogging this, after almost 2 months.

We go to the library once a week to pick up books for both school and bedtime, as well as DVDs.

So, when when the annual Children's Art and Literacy Fest ( CALF ) came along, we were prtty excited.  Or at least I was.  This year, they were celebrating William Joyce, and so, one fateful Thursday, we went downtown for Artwalk and the parade that Mr. Joyce and his characters would be in.

Can you spot the little boy, the hubs and myself in the pic above, from the library's Instagram feed?


 

 



 

It was all going well until the dark clouds started rolling in.  And I mean, ROLLING.  At some point, it looked like a scene from the movies where you know in the next minute, a TORNADO was gonna come descending upon your pointy head.



Well, you can't tell from these photos, but the crowd started to just scatter in all directions.  We had to make a snap decision as to whether to find cover, or run to our car and risk getting sucked up and deposited in a different county.  Having a 5 year old with you definitely makes you go the safest route. :)



We decided to head for the library, which had a basement.  A lot of other people had the same idea, and soon there was a little community of us packed in the library to get out of the storm.

And boy, did the heavens open up on us.  It would have been fire and brimstone in biblical times, but what came down was BASEBALL sized hail, with a velocity that was just breathtaking.

See the shattered glass of the battered cars and what looks like a machine gun firing down from above?

There were people who were trapped outside the library, with anything they could find held out in front of them to shield them against the bone shattering projectiles hailing down on them.  Luckily we had librarians who were really aware and quickly opened the side door to usher them in to safety.

As we watched the tree limbs come crashing down and cars getting totaled right in front of our very eyes through the glass windows of the library, I tried to keep calm and not freak out, thinking about our car that was parked a block away.

Just an example of what crazy sizes it got up to...


photos taken off of twitter HERE


and HERE


( We later found out that downtown got the brunt of the storm. *sigh* I know, right? )

Long story short, THIS was only a small part of what happened to our car.

Praise the Lord that our home was spared any damage, unlike a lot of folks who had damage to their vehicles AND their homes.

We were lucky to have insurance on our car, and our windshield and this quarter glass thingy have since been replaced, but the rest of our car is still badly pock marked.  The car dealerships and body shops are so backed up, our appointment for mid August has now been pushed back even farther, to a yet undetermined date.

One of the estimates on the collective damage done on this fateful day was $400 million.

...to be continued...