It all started around quarter to nine when the power went out across most of campus. We could hear sirens of some sort going past fairly close, and there was a rumour flying that someone had knocked over a pole… but then we heard that the fire-engines and EMTs were over at the SLC… so who knows. They never did announce what had caused the problem (the PTB’s at BU aren’t terribly good with communication).
So, we just sat in the dark at the ref desk and chatted and listened to my radio (thank goodness the batteries which have been in there for the past… ooh… three years? at least! still worked!). Not that there was any relevant news on, so we just listened to the oldies station. For an hour and a half. In the dark.
As if that weren’t enough to make the day weird, just as I was getting my stuff together to go home (that would have been right around 4:30pm), the tornado sirens went off, and we were all ordered into the basement. I grumbled, but I went.
There was a small group of us standing around grumbling by the door to the stairwell, when we saw one of the downstairs staff members heading out the door. E asked her why she was leaving, and she said they’d had a tv on in the back, and the tornado was down near Moody (south of our area, and way south of home, for me).
Well, that decided us; it was time for us to go home, and darned if we were going to stay for a tornado that was down in Moody! But we weren’t as brave as L, to leave through the front door, so we snuck round the back, and took the service stairs up to the first floor, and then started across to our building… but our unit leader was at the circulation desk! Darn it! So back into the stairwell and up to the second floor, then across the breezeway to our building and down and out our front door! Phew! Man, we should have been spies! We would have aced the covertness tests… except for the giggling.
Anyway, it took me about twenty minutes to get home (five minutes usually), because the freeway was clogged, and I decided to take a shortcut, which also ended up having fairly heavy traffic. But still, home safe, if a little damp. We may not have had any tornadoes in my area, but it was raining pretty good! The lawn between my building and the next was turning into a lake; the drainage ditch outside the complex had overflowed its banks, as had the Brazos; and my apartment windows got a good rinse, because at times, the water was falling horizontally (this despite the three foot overhang of the roof).
I kept the tv on the weather reports most of the evening, just to be certain, but all we got in my area was thunder, lightning and rain. And that was plenty, let me tell you.
Sadly, the bad weather meant that rehearsal got cancelled, and we also decided to reschedule our SKVE night/intervention. Just as well, I suppose. With so much water on the roads (even after the storm passed), it was safer not to be driving on them.
As if to mock the previous day, yesterday was gorgeous! And today’s shaping up to be more of the same. It’s like Nature had a hissy fit on Friday, then took a nap and woke up all sunshine and smiles.
