The Derecho

This little girl was all ready to have a 

birthday pool party yesterday… 

but Mother Nature had other plans.

Duh  Duh Duuuuunnnn… Derecho!

(No, we weren't crazy enough to be out taking pictures 

in the lightening, but thanks to the person who was  

that kindly posted this on the internet for us to borrow.)

Late Friday night, the Derecho came upon us suddenly and unexpectedly. Derecho means “straight” in Spanish. This type of storm’s name is supposedly taken from the high velocity straight-line winds… but we’re pretty sure “straight up freaky storm” is appropriate too.

Fairfax County sent out the e-warning a few minutes before it hit, but since Melinda was in the kitchen cutting festive shapes into a watermelon and making cupcakes while Matt was watching MBA lectures – neither of us got the e-mail.

The wind hit first, loud and intense. Less than a minute later the lightening started striking all around, one bolt after another, again and again. It looked like a fireworks show. And, of course, there was the pelting rain. We lost power and cell reception almost immediately.

Matt did run out into the mess briefly just as it started, to rescue the fallen body of our avocado tree. Its root ball has temporarily been shoved into a hastily-emptied trash can (the only thing we had on hand big enough to hold it). Then we battened down the hatches and got everyone downstairs.

We spent a sleepless night in the basement – at first because the wind, lightening, and crashing trees were so loud. And, after the storm passed, because Adelaide, who was scared and wanted to be held, tosses and turns in her sleep and kept whacking us. Eleanor had the pack-and-play all to herself, so she slept like a champ.

We’d like to say that when morning came, we embraced our power outage with pioneer-spirit. That we embraced neighbors, enjoyed nature and reveled in our techno-freedom. And we did…. for about 45 minutes.

We're kind of hoping they leave this tree

to be a new "bridge" across the creek. 

Guess we better go a different way on our walk. 

 Lamp post down... It was the same story everywhere we went,

 huge trees down - cars, signs, fences, and more crushed.. It was unreal.

By mid-morning, even our basement was sweltering hot, and Adelaide needed her asthma treatment. So, we crossed our fingers and headed out to Melinda’s office building, which is only a couple miles from us. They had their generator humming away and the AC was cranking. Yahoo! While Adelaide used her nebulizer, we were able to send out party postponements (until such a time as there are no longer large tree branches in the pool…) and catch up on all the storm warning e-mails we’d missed the night before.

Since the corporate lawyer was in the office, actually trying to work and make calls, we decided it would be rude to camp out and let our destructive toddler build forts out of office supplies. So, we joined the rest of Fairfax County and headed to the mall.

It was PACKED. You couldn’t take a step without tripping over a teenager, sprawled across the floor with all their digital devices plugged into the mall wall sockets so they could presumably Facebook with their friends a couple stores down.

But, we had a great time! Since Adelaide’s party had to be postponed, we spoiled the almost-birthday girl – just a little.

Adelaide didn't let go of her balloon until we pried 

it out of her fist while she was napping hours later. 

French fries and ketchup - a rare treat! We're

not sure if she liked eating them or just dipping them better.

We spent the rest of the day going back and forth between checking on our townhome and soliciting establishments with AC as power was slowly restored to the area. We were blessed and fortunate enough that, by the end of the day, our power had returned. So, with the exception of having to boil all our water, we’re back to normal.

We'll also be eating cancelled-party 

fruit salad and cupcakes for days.

Adelaide is delighted at the plethora of delicious foods.

If you’ve seen the news, you know that the damage in our area was extensive and many people are still without power in this triple digit heat. We hope everyone is restored to normalcy soon – and if you are in an area that is going to take a few days to get power back – call us. We’ve got a comfy cool bed in the basement. And, you don’t have to fight a 17 year old to charge your cell phone.