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I'll stay here. I actually own this ground, free and clear, where I was born. Family will get it when I'm gone.

Not much I can do but notify the neighbors when bad winds are coming through and hunker in the bathtub or go outside and do the last great act of defiance toward the storm cloud.

I'm about 50-50 on that. Depends on how close to the weekend it is.

/johnny

I've had a few close calls in my house, had to clean pink insulation out of the trees a couple of times, return a few pieces of mail, over not quite twenty years of living here. Only damage I've ever experienced occurred on a very weird night, it had been one of those too clammy, too still, foreboding greenish clouds days but nothing happened until after dark.

We don't have sirens here to alert the public, just weather radio and Emergency Broadcast System, which really went off, there were funnels being reported all around. Power went out, followed by constant lightning, then hail, then that oppressive feeling of rapidly falling barometric pressure, my ears popped. Herded the dogs into the hall bath with me, got into the tub and waited. And waited. After what felt like several minutes, long enough to start feeling sheepish that I'd overreacted, the bathroom exhaust fan started spinning up to a whine. No power, remember. Heard what I can only describe as a loud buzzing overhead, from outside. Then, a huge thud that shook the house. And it was over.

Went out with a flashlight and the entire exterior of the house was plastered with wet shredded oak leaves, large branches lying around. No damage to the house that I could see, lost that adrenaline rush and was suddenly very tired, went back inside and went to bed.

Next morning, power was restored, got up and went to take a better look at what needed to be cleaned up. Went around to the front side gate to get in the backyard due to downed, large tree branches. Got to the gate and a good twenty Starlings were dead over there, several driven into And stuck in the chain link fence. Got past that and saw what made the big thud, the biggest tree on my small acreage, a huge four-trunked oak. It missed the house by a foot.

Every tall tree in the neighborhood was downed, some wrenched out of the ground. My guess was that it was a fairly intense funnel that did not touch down. I looked into getting involved with SkyWarn after that.