Thar She Blows....!

So the big story today is the wind.  Good golly, it was blowing!  Hard!  Really, this was the windiest day in this area that I have ever experienced.

The biggest surprise in all this was the fact that the Federal Government decided to close because of the wind.  When my alarm woke me up this morning at 4:30am, I did my typical pick up my iPhone and start checking emails, news, and sports scores.  The first thing that I saw was a message from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) stating that my office was closed.  And my first thought upon seeing that was there must've been a national emergency.  Was the Capitol blown up?  Did North Korea send out a nuke??  Did the President offend another country???  No, no, and no.  It was the unprecedented wind.

So I attempted to go back to bed, but the Faithful Pup Scout was awake by this time, and she needed to go out.  A few of my employees sent me texts stating they were either teleworking or going to enjoy an unexpected Friday with no work.  Even though I was off the clock, I monitored my email all morning, and my peers and boss and I called in to our morning Stand Up at 9:30am.  After that, it was a whole lot of nothing.  Daughter Melody woke up with her normal alarm at 6am, but I sent her right back to bed, and I didn't see her again until around 11am.

The biggest problem I had today was keeping the cover on my 2-seater Mazda, which still has a gaping hole in the top.  There were snow flurries most of the morning, and I found myself repeatedly going out to re-cover the car because the wind whipped it off.  I use a bunch of bungee cords to keep it strapped down, but the wind was too strong.  Following my stand up, I decided to run out to the store and get a few more bungee cords, and I pretty much wrapped it up like a Christmas Tree.  It stayed in place for the most part for the rest of the day, but I had to keep checking it because I was so paranoid about it.

While I was out, the wind buffeted my Jeep like crazy.  Higher profile vehicles had a major disadvantage today.  And so did many trees.  I saw debris everywhere, and there were a couple of roads that were closed due to fallen trees, which meant detours and a longer trip home.

At around 4pm, my neighbor rang my doorbell and pounded on my door.  It turns out that a large piece of the siding on my house was ripped off by the wind, and he saw it and brought it over for me.  I did a walk-around of the house to assess any other damage.  Fortunately, I didn't see any, though I found several shingles, but they were a different color from my roof.

The wind continued to blow all evening, with sustained gusts howling like nothing I've seen or heard in all the years I've lived here.  It's now 9pm, and we still have a few more hours until it is predicted to die down a bit.

This wasn't the day I expected when I woke up this morning.  I'm glad that my family and friends seem to have gotten through the day relatively unscathed.  With all of the power outages and fallen trees, it certainly could have been worse. 

Stay safe out there, and have a great evening.