Tropical Storm Olga

A few days back I recall telling someone that we need a tropical storm to make up for the lack of rain for well over a month.  Ancient trees, lawns and ornamental plants alike were showing the stress of a prolonged drought.  Only a lot of water could help.  A summer shower was not enough.

Well, yesterday, 10-26-19, we got 'a lot of water' in the form of Olga.

            Tropical Storm Olga Damages Northshore Area

"Tropical Storm" she's called, and maybe "Hurricane Olga."  She definitely hit with the personality of a hurricane and the rage of a tornado.  And 72 mph winds were reported in Abita Springs, just a few miles from us.

Olga dropped 2” of rain on us and 5” or more on areas west of us. 

I slept through it but Judy was up and could hear it blow through.  We got to see the damage when it got light enough.  After a few minutes of looking around we were surprised that it wasn’t worse than it was.

The first thing I noticed was the back porch wireless phone lying in the middle of the sidewalk about 25’ away from its perch well under the porch.  Rain was still falling and it got soaked, but it still lit up.  That’s an odd object to go flying that far when there was a lamp right next to it that barely moved.

Winds had to be close to 70 mph here and probably more in other areas.  Trees were down everywhere in the Northshore area.  Some trees near our house were stripped of about half their leaves or pine-needles.  Roads were closed, some areas flooded, and the power went out, of course, about 5:00 am.  It came back on at 7:10 pm last night.  A long day without power and without any news and no TV to watch the LSU - Auburn game.  (we won - barely)

There was some damage to some our planted and potted plants, a picture-holder molly-bolt was actually pulled out of the porch's brick wall.  Another painting was down but understandably so.  It was just hung on a small nail.  Yet another picture near it was unmoved, 

A five-foot tall Hibiscus plant just off the Coop was knocked over. It may be salvageable.  The Coop itself was undamaged but it was full of pine needles and water.  We cleaned it up and cooked breakfast and dinner there.

Four doors down, the wind knocked down a brick-wall gate entrance.  As more and more neighbors come forward, we expect to hear of lots of damage to awnings and plants here in our neighborhood.  

Given the extent and type of damage we had, we think it may have been a small tornado or wind-burst because it seems to have made very narrow path between our house and the Coop.  Some things that should have been knocked over or at least moved were still in place only inches from where something else, even some heavy stuff, was moved anywhere from a foot to 25’ away.  It even knocked over a heavy concrete angel behind the Coop.

Our neighbors with whole-house generators had power all day, of course.  But we lived without it. I sure would have liked having a whole-house generator that started up automatically within 30 seconds of the power outage and runs forever on natural gas. (Added to the list of how to spend my lottery winnings.)

I now believe that weather is worse here than at was in Texas.

At least we don't have earthquakes or snow blizzards to deal with.