At about 8:30 tonight, there was a close lightning strike, and we were plunged into darkness. For a few seconds. We Barrons are a little weird about flashlights – we collect them like some people collect stamps or coins. In spite of the nearly-instant re-lighting of our lives, the computers shut off, as did the stereo, which was playing Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Muh. We reported the outage using a cell phone, and about 15 minutes passed before a truck appeared, looking at our power lines.

We sat and read, but before long there was a text message on Abby’s cell phone, saying TORNADO WARNING! It occurred that me that my police scanners were, of course, off, since the power was off, so I turned on a hand-held scanner to hear the Byng Fire Department telling their volunteers, “Take care of your families first, we’ve got enough personnel at the station.” Then they decided that since the power was out at the siren tower, they would roll through town with sirens blaring and announcing the warning on their PA horns.
We calmly and quickly got our shoes on, grabbed the dogs, flashlights and radios (scanner and ham), and headed down to Dorothy’s house. She was asleep, so we woke her up and we all went down into the tiny basement below her garage. We waited for no more than ten minutes, after which police and fire departments reported that the threat area had moved to our northwest.
This time last week it was too cold to move.