Basement Blogging

We're all here, my little family of three creatures and ten legs, hanging out in the basement.

When I got home, CNN was reporting that this would likely be one of the top three days for severe weather for the year. Thus, after getting bottled water and a flashlight downstairs, I checked the radio. Alas, my batteries were good until - - - are you ready for this? March 2003. That's not a typo: 2003! Yowza.

So Howard and I jumped in the car and headed to Home Depot. We got lots of batteries then got back home.

The sirens have been going off nearby for quite a while now; they sound for any tornado warning in the county. The first sounding of them, though, addressed concerns quite a ways away.

With the first thunderstorm that hit (with the brightest lightening outside of my window I may have ever seen), Sophie had headed to her carrier that has a home in the back of my closet on the floor. (It's a safe spot for her, and it creates more of a comfort feeling in her carrier when we travel now that she sleeps in there sometimes.) Thus, not too long ago when a massive cell crept over the county line from the south into Tennessee and Shelby County, I knew where to find her.

Sophie and Howard, thus, are here; Howard, poor thing, is quite bored. (And is now whining at the top of the stairs.) (I've left Sophie in her carrier, and she's quite content there.) I'm listening to the local NBC affiliate; the broadcast is being carried over a radio station.

We've got a tornado on the ground about ten or twelve miles to my east, and there's a "Tornado Emergency" from the National Weather Service. I (and the weather guys) have never heard of such a thing! They're talking about "long-track" tornados being likely--ones that stay on the ground for an extended time period.

I've heard scary reports of injuries and now, of people trapped somewhere. Good thoughts for all those affected. (My Wisconsin friend is expecting upwards to twenty inches of snow tonight!)

Here, the massive cell has left my immediate area. Even the NBC guys have said downtown and Midtown (where I live) are doing okay right now. The next massive cell is heading in from Mississippi, but it's going to hit to the east of me. And so we're going to head back upstairs so we can actually see the radar in real time. ( do just love the radar, and my internet connection just doesn't support much video.) The tornado may still be on the ground out in Germantown, but it's not headed here at all . . . for now.

See, there's still the huge squall line (that passed over Dallas earlier today) out in Arkansas, and that'll hit Memphis in a few hours. For now, though, this storm has passed away from me.