State of Emergency!

Friday or Saturday of last week started off a heatwave of temps with humidity at 105. It was miserable without AC!!!! The nights were just about unbearable. I felt so horrible for my sweet babies trying to sleep in 90 degrees. Tuesday was supposed to be the last day of the heatwave. They predicted heavy rain with severe thunderstorms. I have to tell you what happened...it was another case of Tender Mercies! Tuesday Rebekah and I did some moving in the 105 degree weather. Needless to say I was sweaty beyond belief! The kids only had half a day of school because of the heat, there isn't AC in the school. The kids were just as nasty as I was.

Once we got back from Little Falls I had the kids get in the shower so they would be ready for school in the morning. About 9:30 p.m. I got them into bed and was checking my email when I felt strongly that if I wanted to shower I better get myself upstairs. I waited figuring I still had plenty of time then I had the prompting again and immediately ran up the stairs, grabbed my clothes as fast as I possibly could then showered faster than I ever have before. While I was rinsing my hair the power went out for about 10 seconds. I was worried! When it came back on I finished as fast as I was able, brushed my teeth then ran downstairs and filled pitchers of water for in case. As I was filling the second pitcher the power failed and did not come back on! We are in the middle of moving, I had packed up my flashlight/radio and my candles with matches and moved them that morning to Little Falls....good timing aye?

There was straight lightning for half an hour, thunder struck and shook the house, Ethan and Bella screamed and cried a bit...believe it or not (I personally don't) Hannah and Brock slept through the whole thing. There were crashing sounds that hurt my ears, blue flashes of lights indicating where transformers were exploding, not 10 minutes into the storm the sirens started and didn't slow down until about mid morning the next day. (that isn't to say they stopped then either!) Dad instilled in me the love of watching storms, so as I opened the door to look the storm in the face, the 80+mile an hour winds slammed the door into me. Rain was falling so hard and fast made it almost impossible to see the tree not 30 feet from the door. It was awe inspiring! What a way to beat the heat! Seriously, this storm was supposed to drop the temp by 20 degrees!

Ethan, Bella and I waited out the storm together in their room (I was concerned the tree would fall on the house into the kids bedroom) Once the wind died down we came downstairs. We could hear our neighbors talking about branches that had hit their house, about the destruction all over our road and those around us. We could smell smoke from a house fire. It was scary!

We did have one good moment...we saw our first NJ firefly! We tried to catch it but there were so many branches strewn across the yard that we didn't give it a fair effort because we were barefoot.

Brian was helping in the cannery 45 Min's from the house while the storm hit us. He could not believe the destruction he came home to. A three minute drive from the Bloomfield exit to our house turned into 20 because so many homes were devastated, trees were in the road, wires were down, etc. I am grateful we were safe through it! We were blessed that none of our possessions were harmed.

The power came back on about 6:00 p.m. the next day. We are the lucky ones, many in the town still do not have power and are not expected to have any until Saturday. Bloomfield Ave. is a vital road in Nutley so we were a priority. The kids are happy because we will not have school the rest of the week. Essex county, especially Nutley was declared a state of emergency. This storm was really something!