Sub-Tropical Storm Beryl broke all the rules. Thankfully, she was "only" a sub-tropical storm and she came ashore a bit north of us.
The clouds from the outer bands began moving in on Sunday...
There were rain showers off and on and it began to get windy.
I ran a load of laundry and vacuumed the house. We charged all the laptops and cell phones and kindles and made sure we had batteries and flashlights easily accessible...
The local weather forecasters were gleefully watching as the Hurricane Hunters flew into the storm. They were practically giddy as they reported the increased wind speeds as Beryl hovered over the warm waters of the gulf stream. "She's almost at hurricane strength!"
We read and kept a careful eye on water levels and watched the whitecaps on the lake.
Beryl came ashore north of us around midnight. As a result of her northerly track, our weather wasn't bad at all. We lost power around 9 pm. Mr. Wonderful drove through the neighborhood and reported that a large tree had fallen and taken down several utility poles and that there was a live wire sparking in the street. The police had cordoned off that area (the entrance and exit to the neighborhood) and told him that it would likely be several hours before power was restored.
We turned on the generator.
Early yesterday morning our power was restored. There were some small branches and leaves in our driveway and some stepping stones by our bulkhead had been moved by the water banging up under the deck.
I saw a few branches down in neighbor's yards and some damaged trees...
Then I saw the power lines and utility poles that had come down (and taken our electricity and internet out)...
Beryl is still hanging around, drenching us with rain.
The ground is sodden. We needed some rain, but this is kind of ridiculous! The (still rather gleeful) weather forecasters are reporting that we may get 5-10 inches before Beryl begins moving north and out of our area.
Mr. Wonderful's birthday was yesterday. Instead of a fun, family outing on the boat, we stayed inside and The Princess baked a birthday cake (with a little help from Betty Crocker) and we sang and watched as Mr. W blew out his candles.
Even though it wasn't quite what we had planned, it was a nice day. The Princess was extremely proud of her cake - and the fact that she managed not to burn it! The Boy had a valid excuse to be a lazy teenager and lie around doing nothing all day.
And so did his parents!
