First tornado touches down in Detroit in 29 years and hundreds of thousands lost power

Any day I have failed to post here has been because of two events, either I'm in the hospital or the power went out. This time, it was the latter, which is playing second fiddle to Detroit Tornado Strikes Eastside, Causing Major Damage as WXYZ reported in a rare video of theirs I can embed.

For the first time in nearly three decades, a tornado has touched down in Detroit, leaving extensive damage and dangerous debris across parts of the city — with the lower Eastside hit the hardest.

I had to take shelter during the tornado warning. While there had been severe thunderstorms the night before, which had knocked out the power for more than 100,000 customers, and all day on Thursday, I had avoided having to take any action because of the weather other than driving to an appointment instead of walking until about 3:30 P.M., when public safety came to my office and told me to take shelter. There, I waited with the rest of the employees and students until the all clear sounded about 4:30 P.M. I also called my wife to see and hear how she was riding through the storm. She was about to seek shelter herself when the livestream she was watching cut off because our house lost power. That was quite a moment, hearing the sudden dead silence on the phone.

I'll have more to say after a third video, but first, a second tornado touched down in Metro Detroit, as ClickOnDetroit/Local 4/WDIV reported in NWS: EF2 tornado tears through Detroit, EF0 confirmed in Lincoln Park.

An EF2 tornado packing estimated peak winds of 115 mph tore through Detroit on Thursday afternoon, leaving considerable damage across parts of the city and becoming Detroit's first confirmed tornado in 29 years.

WDIV added an objective angle from the studio that complemented WXYZ's man-on-the-street perspective.

I close the videos with FOX 2 Detroit reporting Volunteers across Metro Detroit clean up, rebuild after tornado and storms.

NWS confirms a tornado touched down on Detroit’s east side Thursday, causing massive damage and leaving thousands without power.

I'm glad FOX 2 Detroit covered the suburbs, because the straight-line winds and lightning did as much damage as the tornado; it was just more dispersed and the individual incidents were generally not as spectacular. Also, the power being out is the same everywhere, including the suburb where I live. It's disruptive.

I just hit a wall for whining about what my wife and I went through. I'm tired, hot, sweaty, hungry, need to replace the half-and-half that spoiled during the blackout, and don't want to write any more about it today. Instead, I'm telling my readers to stay tuned for the first Emmy winners tomorrow as the Sunday entertainment feature followed by a sequel to Alexis Dahl describes 'The Incredible Engineering Behind Michigan's Iconic Bridge' for Labor Day.