yup, 24 hours and 25 minutes, to be (pretty much) exact.

yesterday i was over at cynicalscribe‘s, and even though i knew a storm was coming (“winds up to 80 mph! 1″ sized hail! etc!”), i didn’t really think too much about it. but then i checked the weather map and saw this…

…and figured that i should better hurry up and head back to annapolis before it hit, and i still had to stop by the giant to pick up a few things i needed too! so i ran over to the giant, grabbed my groceries, and was leaving there just as it started to rain in columbia. floored it back towards annapolis, and on the way i heard that there was a tornado warning for the county for the next 15-20 minutes or so. didn’t see any tornados, but i did see some spooky-looking weather.

i got to annapolis just before the storm hit; i literally pulled up the driveway at 3:58 and the wind picked up and was blowing like crazy, and i hadn’t been home for more than a few minutes before the power went out. mom and anne were about to leave to go to a cousin’s birthday party out in the direction i just came from, but when they saw the weather map…

…they figured they’d wait for the storm to blow over. i brought out my radio scanner and listened to all the police / fire department / paramedic calls go out during the storm, and heard all sorts of crazy stuff:

– barn on fire

– drawbridge stuck open because of the power outage

– people trapped in elevators

– cardiac arrest at sandy point state park

– customer/management dispute at the grocery store (the customer was described as wearing “a black top hat”, so perhaps it was mr. peanut who was upset)

– a “tree through [a] house”

– an assault at the bar where we used to go do karaoke

– a nosebleed (caused by an assault in a hotel, apparently)

– a boat capsized (after the storm had passed) and people were in the water; the fireboat had to be summoned

– the annapolis summer garden theater was putting on a show and some kids kept peeking over the wall (so not quite a knothole gang)

– intrusion detection alarms went off at the football stadium across the street, and though police found someone walking around the area and checked him out, he turned out to be ok and the gates at the stadium were all secured

the power was out all last night, was still out this morning, and was out until about 4:25 pm this afternoon. we ended up tossing almost all of the stuff in the refrigerator (since that’ll only stay cold for about 4 hours or so. the freezer had to be partly cleaned out too, but i think most stuff in there did ok since a full freezer will last 2 days and a half-full freezer will last 1 day without power.

i drove through the neighborhood this morning on my way to work and this was probably the most severe tree damage i saw on the few streets i drove down… it’s a bit bigger in diameter than a telephone pole:

anyway, we’re glad to have power again.

in other weather-related news, i signed up for a skywarn (see also) basics 1 certification class in columbia in september. should be interesting.