My wife and her parents arrived for a double-celebration weekend - our 21st wedding anniversary and her father’s 75th birthday, both June 29. My son joined us for dinner but opted to drive home to Maryland afterward rather than stay the night. As we bid him a good evening we looked west and saw not billowing clouds, but a solid black veil across the horizon rapidly cresting over us.
The sky ignited in continuous lightning and the veil enveloped us. Then we heard the wind. It approached like a cresting wave and slammed into the house so hard the windows shook. In the darkness the air was so thick it was hard to breathe. We dashed inside and it continued to build. The power went dead. As I watched the buckeye tree beside the house thrash like bamboo and the glass doors billow, we decided to head for the basement. Jeanne, her parents and I conversed by flashlight, but we could not take our attention from the raging cacophony outside.
After a while I ventured upstairs. As I approached the window rivulets of water streamed on my head. I wondered, “How could it be raining inside?” My flashlight revealed several steady leaks falling from the ceiling. I assumed a pipe had burst, but looking upstairs I could find no evidence of broken plumbing. I stepped back and looked at the walls in disbelief. The horizontal torrents lashing the house were driving through every log crevice and beam forming pools on the floor and causing the “indoor rain” below. Alas, entire beams were saturated.
It was not a “quick” storm. It slowly receded over a few hours and we managed a fitful night of sleep with no power, no water, and no news from the outside world.
The morning light revealed wrecks of trees across the field and driveway - a seventy foot poplar snapped in half; a similar sized maple completely uprooted. In all we counted seven full grown trees fallen. Branches covered the field like confetti. A large glass terrarium had blown off the porch and shattered. Our gas grill and wooden Adirondack chair had toppled across the lawn.
It was an anniversary we will never forget. Little did we know this would turn out to be the great Derecho of 2012.
