WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

That was quite a storm!

(*) / (*)

I knew there were more words to be said, but my first one was WOW!

There I was sitting at my desk putting down notes for stories I wanted to write. That became a habit because all too often, I plan to write a story, get interrupted, something else pops in my head, or I’ll think of a story prompt and begin writing when I know, for a fact, I’m really not ready to begin, and before I know it, I’d forgotten my original thought. Now, I write down my ideas and pick and choose which I’ll write first and stick to it until the story is finished.

It was such a beautiful day. Perfect for daydreaming so I sat back in my chair and stared out the window while my mind was engrossed in thought.

Should I write something that had to do with that beautiful, sunny day? Perhaps, I should write about the luncheon my friends and I attended the day before. I began writing those thoughts down when quite suddenly, WHAM! BOOM! What the heck? I thought. A large lightning bolt hit my neighbor’s tree splitting it in half. Where the heck did that come from? Then just as suddenly, the rain came down and the sun disappeared.

When I say suddenly, I mean within a minute or two and I’m not joking. Here in Southwest Florida, we have frequent sudden storms. Oh heck, I’ve seen it rain across the street while my side of the street, still sat in bright sunshine. Yeah, Florida has some really strange weather.

The sound was so loud, I almost jumped out of my seat. Okay, so I DID get out of my seat – and very quickly, I might add. As soon as I stood, I turned off my computer, and backed away from the window. Yes, I’m that afraid of lightning and don’t want to tempt fate.

Can lightning crash through windows? I didn’t know and wasn’t planning to, as I said, tempt fate and find out. Yet, I was mesmerized and found it difficult to take my eyes off the now split and fallen tree.

It wasn’t so much the tree that captivated my attention. It was the anticipation and somewhat fear that the lightning might strike again – but a lot closer.

I waited and watched as the rain fell in a torrent. The downpour of rain was so heavy, I found it difficult to see across the street.

Once again, I heard – and felt, the loud rumble of thunder. It felt like it shook the house and rattled the windows. Then the crack! The unmistakable sound that lighting had, once again struck something. This time, I had no idea what and where.

As quickly as it began, it ended. While the ground and everything else that was outside was completely drenched and there were massive puddles everywhere, the sun was now shining brightly as if nothing had ever happened.

Yet, it did!

That violent, fast-moving storm, which lasted for what seemed like only ten minutes, was ferocious enough to cause a power outage that affected almost everyone on my street. Those who lived within a radius of about two-thousand feet of the electrical transformer lost all electricity. The company’s transformer, when hit with that powerful bolt, exploded into several thousand shards that spread many feet in every direction.

It was a horrific sight to see so many metal pieces on the ground still smoldering. The pole where it had once been placed, was now a splintered mess of wood and wires.

As I said, many of us had no power but at least our cell phones still worked, and I’m sure the power company was inundated with more calls than were equipped to handle on a Sunday afternoon. However, within an hour, a small emergency crew arrived to assess the situation and make arrangements to replace the pole and transformer.

They said that unfortunately, the repairs might take a week, possibly two and suggested that whoever had generators use them. Thankfully, since we had a major Cat 4.5 hurricane hit us not too long ago, we all had those machines to give us enough power to run our refrigerators, and whatever else we felt we truly needed.

You’re probably wondering why we had no damage to our homes (other than losing power). Why didn’t any houses catch fire from the falling metal pieces from the extremely hot transformer?

The houses in my area have either metal or clay roofs. It’s a city code to which we much all comply and a safety feature to help save us should some sort of disaster befall us – like an exploding transformer.

While our roofs did, in fact, save us from this electrical calamity, we all knew that the storm was just the beginning of things to come.

After all, the storm that blew through my area happened in the last week in May and hurricane season would be starting June first.