It was more than an hour before the sun started to fade out and the dark sky rolled in. I was making such great progress on The Grapes of Wrath, only five pages left. Determination to make that book a part of my past instead of my present (it's been a struggle to read a book I'm not enjoying) allowed me to convince myself that I could easily make it home before the rain. I was partially correct.
Finally finished, I started toward home, a mere three blocks away. The sky was ominous and intriguing, so I saw no harm in stopping for a photo. Then the dust started gusting into my eyes, leaves were pouring out of trees onto my head, and I could hardly walk forward or in a straight line. Garbage bins were crashing and burning onto the path one or two steps behind me.
It became unclear whether I should duck into a doorway or try to make it home. Part of my mind was flashing through scenes from Twister, anticipating an F5 in the next thirty seconds. Ultimately, I decided that I'd rather be in my own building should it come to that; there was comfort in the idea of a secure underground level. As I started crossing the street, my mass of hair whipping in front of my face, there was a sound of metal screeching on concrete. Sure enough, a large metal sculpture on the sidewalk corner had just tipped into the street as easily as a chess pawn. If that wind was taking down ten feet of metal, I had no business being outside. Time to pick up the pace.
I jogged the next block and a half, noting tree branches on cars, people cowering in alleys and doorways, other people jogging toward wherever, metal torn away from telephone posts, dislodged signs. These winds had been in effect for no more than three minutes and I was clueless about what else was coming.
Once I stepped inside my building, and checked that my car was debris-free, my heart rate slowed, but I noticed that there was a little tremor in my hand. Checking out the weather radar quelled any worries, seeing that I was on the northernmost edge of a front heading southeast. Of course, that made me wonder what the center of the storm looked like. A few highlights, according to the National Weather Service: "damaging wind in excess of 60 mph, large hail, deadly lightning".
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