Last Friday, September 18th, 2020 we had a huge storm that rolled in to where I live in Oregon. It was raining hard and caused some flash flooding in areas close to our city and some in water came into my kitchen because it was raining so hard. Not only that, but we had a lightning strike somewhere close to the house because it and the thunder hit at the same time. This strike was deafening! We were counting how far the thunder was from the lightning and this strike didn't have any time between.
This caused a power surge and then our power went out for hours. The power company fixed the fuse in the transformer, but it went out again in the middle of that night. The power company came out again and replaced the transformer on the pole with a brand new one. When the power came back on we assessed the damage and found out that we lost a bunch of our appliances and electronics, including our phone and internet. They had all been fried by the surge.
A line of thunderstorms containing heavy rain, gusty winds, small hail, and frequent lightning is moving northward over portions of the Willamette Valley and Coast Range. When thunder roars go indoors! #orwx #wawx pic.twitter.com/0JEbQ0OTuG
— NWS Portland (@NWSPortland) September 18, 2020
It could have been worse though because my husband, Brian, was outside during all of this making a trench to take the water flow away from our house. He could have been struck by the lightening or injured by falling tree limbs. We are all a little rattled, but our family and our farm critters are safe and this is all that really matters. Also, we have some wonderful neighbors that helped us out with letting us use their internet for my daughters' schooling as well.
Things are finally getting back to some sort of normalcy. Our internet has been restored. We are taking action to get everything else that was damaged fixed. We are also going to be installing more surge protectors and making sure things are unplugged during storms like this one.
On the positive side the much needed rain cleared the air from the smoke of fires in the surrounding areas in the Pacific Northwest. We have blue skies and actual fluffy white clouds instead of haze and choking pollution from the smoke. I am so glad to be able to breathe again and go outside without feeling like I am suffocating. The rain was a blessing even though lightning did damage.
This has sure been quite the year with COVID-19, protests for Black Lives Matter, fires and other natural disasters, and now this. I am sure there are other things I have left out, but through all the trials that The Lord gives us, we can overcome.
