I had an eventful three days and two nights because of a severe storm knocking out my power

It's rare that I miss a day here, let alone two, but the usual cause when it has happened was a power outage (the other time I was in the hospital). That's why I was offline the past two days. WXYZ has the story, beginning with Metro Detroit hit hard by severe storms.


I saw the dark storm cloud at 0:15 in the video advancing on me when I left work right at 5:00 P.M. and knew I was in for an eventful drive home. The rain began as I got into Snow Bear and then started pouring as I headed north to pick up an order. It came down so heavy that I couldn't see the street signs and wondered where along my route I was. The traffic crept along at 7-10 miles per hour. Fortunately, by the time I arrived to the store to pick up my order, the rain had stopped. However, parking lot pickup was closed so I had to go into the store to get my order. All of that was a minor inconvenience compared to what was next, as my drive home was about to become even more eventful.

WXYZ picked up the story with Storms take down power lines.


I continued my errands to pick up some groceries on my way home and found myself in another traffic jam. I found out the cause when I drove past downed power lines that were still burning and smoking on the other side of the street, followed by a dark traffic light. Things got worse when I went to the store and found its power out. In fact, the entire shopping center had lost power, along with the traffic signal at the corner. I called my wife and found out that our house had lost power as well. I drove home to see traffic lights out until I was a mile and a half north of home, when I finally came across a working traffic signal and open store. I went in to see if they had some hot food to take home. They did. The place was packed with people picking up pizzas. Oh, and the last rotisserie chicken was already spoken for. Luckily, there were a few hot trays of chicken breasts and legs, so I picked up one of each along with some cole slaw from the deli and took it home for dinner. That meant my wife and I were in better shape than Joan M., who was interviewed in Cleanup efforts underway following dangerous storms in metro Detroit. She had trouble getting anything to eat because the stores near her were out of power, too.


The power was out for us and our neighbors until this morning, which WXYZ reported in Picking up the pieces after severe storms roll through area.



I recognized the stretch of Northwestern Highway where downed power lines trapped the woman trapped in her SUV. It's along my usual route home and just a mile and a half from our house. I feel fortunate that I took a different way home Wednesday night or it could have been me stuck on Snow Bear. The traffic signals may not have been working, but the roads were mostly clear. Also, not having access to TV and the internet may have been a blessing. My wife and I saw very little of the worst damage until now, so we were more annoyed than alarmed. It looks like others had it much worse. Even so, it doesn't seem like anyone was severely injured, just their property damaged.

While our part of metro Detroit was experiencing the after effects of severe local weather, the big weather story is Tropical Storm Elsa, which I had been planning on covering before the power went out here. As the proverb says, Man plans and God laughs. That written, I am still planning on blogging about it. Stay tuned.