We just spent a week in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, and while we were gone our neighborhood endured yet another severe weather event. This time is was a nasty hail storm. Hail as big as 1.75″ was reported only blocks from our house, and even bigger hailstones were reported just to the west in Middleton. My friend works in a several-stories-tall office building in Middleton which has a large revolving door on the main level. The entire door was shattered and destroyed by the hail. People at her office had damage estimates on their cars of five to seven thousand dollars.
We were quite alarmed when we got the news, wondering if our vehicle which was sitting in the driveway had also suffered significant damage. Thankfully we had loved ones keeping an eye on things, and they were able to assure us that they didn’t see any noticeable damage which seemed miraculous considering the reports and photos we were seeing on social media.
I don’t know if the hail skipped our block or if our vehicle was protected by the trees it’s parked under, but everything did indeed escape unscathed. My plastic birdfeeders are all intact and so are our plastic downspouts which had holes blown through them in the massive hailstorm we experienced 10 years ago.
Our power went out again, too, but it looks like it was only out for about 2 hours as opposed to the 17-hour and 29-hour outages we had in July. We’ve had 6 power outages so far this year. It’s getting a little old, but if we ever have to encounter rolling blackouts we’re going to be old pros at it. I’ve reset the clocks and settings on our appliances so many times now that I could do it in my sleep.
The plants weren’t so lucky in the hail. They really took a beating. It looks like someone went crazy with a scissors on all the hostas in our neighborhood, including mine:
Many of my tall annuals and perennials were beaten to the ground. We’re at the point in the growing season where I will probably let them be until we have a hard frost and it’s time to yank them out or cut them back. In the mean time the birds can enjoy the seeds. I will make an exception for the asters which are now just coming into bloom.
The weather also caused severe flooding in counties to our west. It’s been a wild summer of weather all over Wisconsin (and in many parts of the U.S.). I’m hoping things settle down now as we transition into winter, or perhaps this is just a preview of things to come.
We’ll be ready with our arsenal of batteries and lanterns!