We got up this morning and Donna asked if we wanted to head over to DD and get some breakfast. “Awesome,” I said. The reason this was such a great idea was we both enjoy our usual meal there and secondly we needed to get a couple of bagels for Friday’s breakfast, because we were riding the tandem to work.
As we prepared to leave I eyeballed the radar and wondered out loud if we would make it over there before we got slammed with a line of thunderstorms. The very tail end of the storms that wreaked havoc over the rest of the south on Wednesday afternoon/evening was making its way through the CSRA. Donna asked, “Should we stay home and eat?” “Nah,” I said, “We’ll be fine.”
As we loaded up the Sonata it was just starting to sprinkle. That was fine, I stayed dry, because the car was under the little tarp over metal frame “carport” we put up for Donna’s mom’s Civic when she moved in with us back in 2000.
About 4 miles into the 6 mile trip I started to regret that offhanded, we’ll be fine, comment. The bottom fell out and it poured and poured and poured. The wind whipped around and driving was limited to under 25 MPH with your fingers crossed that you wouldn’t run off the road.
We did arrive safely and ate our meal while reading the paper sitting on some stools at a counter near the front window. In hindsight this was probably not a good idea as it turns out we were in our own little tornado watch. We dallied long enough that the main part of the storm passed over us and it was raining just enough to make me keep the wipers on intermittent during the drive to The Valve Store(TM).
The wind and rain kept up for most of the day, but by the afternoon the sun was out making for an uneventful drive home. As I pulled into the driveway and headed for the “carport” I noticed a decent sized branch had pierced the tarp and was standing straight up. It was held up by the foot or so of the branch sticking out of the top of the tarp though large tear it made on its way down.
Had the Sonata been parked under there, the branch would had hit the edge of roof and slid down the side of the car along the door and rear quarter panel, maybe busting the little opera window. Yikes.
So now the question is when did the branch fall, during the storm? If it did and if we had stayed home for breakfast, we could have been sitting at the table and heard the crash, bang noise of our 8 day old car being skewered…I guess that, “We’ll be fine,” comment meant us and the Sonata.