Friday night-

Thursday it got up to 105F here, according to the weather reports, with the humidity it "felt like" 112F.

Friday was forecast to be much the same. Heading those warnings, and not having air conditioning in our home, we headed out of the city to cool off with some retail therapy. Poor V had gotten a little heat rash and I was worried about him.

We don't have cable, but I check the weather online. It said we have a 10% chance of thunderstorms. That really didn't seem like a big deal.

When we left to go home it was sunny. It was beautiful, but terribly humid.

When we got closer to our city, we noticed it was dark. I commented to A that it was probably that 10% chance they predicted. We crossed the storm threshold, and the car buffeted almost off the road unexpectedly. We proceeded much below the speed limit the rest of the way into town as branches, hail, and high winds tried to knock us off the roads.

That was the scariest car ride ever.

When we got into town, it was like a disaster area. It was still pouring, there were branches and trees scattered on the roads. There were police and ambulances everywhere. Almost every single streetlight was out. Some streets were flooded. Our side of town got the worst damage; on our street alone there were several tress knocked into people's homes, two taking power lines down with them. We skirted the first one, it was literally on the street, but the second one was next door. A giant tree sized limb had fallen in their yard, taking lines down with it. A giant limb was in our driveway. The photo is our side fence, a limb busted off one of our trees in the front yard and the wind slammed it around to the side of our house and banged our fence up pretty good. There are roof tiles littered in our back yard.

Thank goodness that was the worst of the damage, and that we were okay.

When we got in the house, the power was one but then shut off. It came back on though, and stayed on.

My mom, 30 minutes away in another county, wasn't that lucky; lightning struck their transformer. My cousin and her were without power until midnight. My friend (an hour away) was without power until today. There were street lamps, street signs, utility poles knocked down all over. I know other states got it worse, and I can't even imagine. I mean, I'm in Ohio and we had to declare a state of emergency. Crews were out here at midnight cleaning up this tree and power lines in the neighbors yard. Some street lights are still out.

It was intense.

But we were pretty lucky, considering how bad it could have been. I am super thankful for that!