Thursday, July 20, 2006

Quite a Storm

Quite a storm hit the St. Louis area last night. Gimlet and I almost went to the Cardinals game (we had tickets) but after finding the air conditioning in our house not working when we got up and getting a flat tire on the way to work we decided to just go home and relax after work. Are we glad we did! Downtown St. Louis was hit with 84 miles per hour winds. Windows were blown out of buildings (including the Millennium Hotel and old Dillards building downtown). Part of the airport roof was blown onto highway 70. Semi trucks were blown over on highway 370. Much of the area is still without power right now. The pictures above show the Switzer building right on the St. Louis riverfront in the Landing. The first picture is from March 2005, I took it for my thesis project that I was doing at the time. The second picture is from this afternoon. The building collapsed due to the wind from the storm.

Gimlet and I were lucky, considering the only damage we sustained were some sticks, twigs and leaves from the trees that came down. Our neighbors lost part of a tree in their back yard (see picture), just a bit of it came over the fence into our yard. I'll be doing the clean up tonight, it'll probably only fill a couple lawn waste bags. We headed to the basement when the sirens went off, chinchillas in tote. The poor little things didn't know what was going on.

4 comments:

JBear1982 said...

We got lucky also, we only had a few power surges...didn't hear any sirens or anything...we were watching a movie and when the sky was green mommy lied to me and said it was grey. I am petrified of tornados..she didn't want me freaking out. Smart mommy! Climber was smart, he was probally in the basement somewhere.

Merc Man said...

Yesterday, another effect of the storm was all the power-less stoplights. In North County, there were lots of accidents caused by drivers who drove through intersections without stopping, or even slowing down. At almost every 4-way intersection that had lost power, there were scattered pieces of vehicles that had collided when someone who didn't know the law, or didn't care, blew through the cross street.

elizabeth said...

So unlike you lucky folks ... my worst nightmare has come true: Living at home with my parents with no electricity. Wednesday night was ok but Thursday was miserable. My parents actually went out to my sisters last night with Andrew and I just decided to stay at home cause it was easier that way. Or so I thought ... the last thing I expected was a phone call at 1:30 a.m. telling me to come get Andrew ...

froggiegirl said...

Check it out! My picture got on the Post-Dispatch website!

Reader Submitted Storm Pictures

It's the 5th picture in the slide show. The rest of the pictures are good too, they really show what bad weather is capable of. Scary Stuff!