North East Storms

[cruisin]

Anyone else effected by the severe lightning storms tonight? Our house got hit. Took out a chimney, set off the fire alarms. FD here, all over house. Very thorough! Internet out. Fried the garage door openers, modem, and router. Chimney is split, cap flew off, bricks all over the yard, bricks and mortar chunks down the chimney, flew out of the fireplace. Very scary!

[barbk]

Whoa! Are you sleeping elsewhere tonight? I can't imagine how scary that must have been. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. (I guess tonight might not be a bad time for a good stiff drink.)

(What flew out of the fireplace????)

[GarrAarghHrumph]

The storm split just as it approached my town, with the worst of it going north and south past us. We did get major winds and rain, but we could see the lightening go past north of us out the bedroom window, and we didn't get hit by the same intensity of storm that surrounded us.

[Southpaw]

Jeez cruisin, that must have scared the crap out of you! Hope your nerves are ok.

I hit the storm while driving up the Turnpike and I white knuckled it the whole way. Crazy lightning all over the place.

[milanessa]

cruisin. I guess everyone is okay?

[michiruwater]

Holy crap, cruisin, that sounds awful I agree, definitely a night for a good drink.

[GarrAarghHrumph]

I got home just before the storm struck. I had time to bring in the plants, but that was about it.

My dad's house in Florida gets hit by lightening not infrequently. He lives in "lightening alley". They have lightening rods on their house, and do things like unplug everything they own before they leave the house. Still, they've been through more than one microwave and two TVs due to lightening strikes, but luckily, nothing that impacted the structure of their house.

Cruisin, the chimney will fix; I'm just glad to hear you're okay!

[BittyBug]

Scary, scary, cruisin. I'm glad the damage wasn't worse.

[mkats]

(((((((cruisin)))))))

I happened to be down in the basement and heard the wind roaring outside, so I ran out and brought in all the plants. Just wind here, fortunately.

Good thing I'm living in Northern Virginia at the moment... I wouldn't be surprised if my old house in MD is powerless again.

[cruisin]

Thanks everyone, please forgive the typos, I'm using my cell phone. We are so very lucky that there was no fire! All things considered, it could have been so much worse. I was at y computer, actually on FSU. All of a sudden a huge crash, crackling, and the fire alarms went off. They are beyond loud, ear splitting! We had 3 fire trucks (w/10 firemen) and the police here, within 5 minutes! Pretty amazing for a volunteer fire department! The firemen came through the entire house because they were worried that the alarm went off and that might have been from the electrical box being hit. But their heat and gas sensors cleared us. The chimney looks and is a hazard! We went outside to try and see if the house was hit and looked up and were ! Then we checked the room with the fireplace and chunks of brick and mortar had flown out - took out my husband's chess set and is all over the room. Thank goodness no one was in there. Can't use the phones because the alarm is still activated, we shut off the power, but the phones are still dialing out. Airport is fried! TVs are okay and appliances seem okay. Hopefully the roof/flashing is intact. Chimney is in bad shape. But, I've had a stiff drink and am feeling better Dog was completely unfazed, except for wanting attention from the firemen.

[oleada]

(((cruisin)))
That sounds awful. I'm glad no one was hurt!

[Really]

I'm glad there were no injuries, but it sure sounds scary!

[FigureSpins]

My cousin in Orange county (NY) lost her second gazebo in as many years but fortunately, no other damage. Chairs knocked into the pool, plants and pots tipped over.

[cruisin]

A lot of power outages around NJ, NY. We lost power for a few minutes, a few times, but not any significant amount of time. Able to connect to the internet, now, but have to plug ethernet cable directly into the computer. The Airport is fried. It's still under warranty, but homeowners will cover all appliances. They told us to check everything in the house, run washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, all TVs and computers. We have a $500 deductible, but that's not too bad. Seeing the chimney, in the broad daylight - whew! it looks like a giant axe came down and tried to split it in half. i think the flashing is damaged, so we need to have it looked at, before it rains. Also, we need someone to look down the chimney to see if the cold chimney section of it is blocked. That is where the gas water heater and furnace vent. If there are bricks blocking it, we could have a carbon monoxide problem. We have monitors set up, okay, so far. Also worried that the chimney could collapse.

The strangest part about this was it was just misty outside. We heard some thunder, really far away. Then BOOM! Usually, you can hear/see the lightning get closer, but this was just out of the blue - literally. We have had some crazy weather this year.

[Aceon6]

I know some of you really got wholloped, but our weather guessers totally blew this one. After a night of hysterical weather warnings including a tornado watch , a dangerous wind warning, and "the sky will fall" predictions from all 3 of our main TV stations, we did get a few drops of rain around midnight, but not a single thunderstorm. I wish they could just tell us what might happen without getting so worked up about it.

[Cachoo]

(((cruisin)))
That sounds awful. I'm glad no one was hurt!

^^^^This^^^^ ...that sounds like one nasty storm cruisin...yikes!

[Southpaw]

That storm was freaking insane. I thought my car was going to get blown into the Meadowlands swamp and get buried under a garbage dump never to be seen or heard from again. Not a bad way for me to go, all things considered, but still.

[Rob]

The wind went by here fast - I was worried, but it was over quickly.

cruisin - so sorry about your house. Glad to hear you weren't hurt.

[PDilemma]

Please send the rain that came with it to us. Please.

[cruisin]

That storm was freaking insane. I thought my car was going to get blown into the Meadowlands swamp and get buried under a garbage dump never to be seen or heard from again. Not a bad way for me to go, all things considered, but still.

You might have found Jimmy Hoffa!

Driving in that must have been awful, glad you're safe.

We had no wind, no real rain (isn't that part of a Supreme's song), no warning (except for the news alerts). The lightning just came out of nowhere. this was a really disjointed storm. Some places got rain with winds blowing it horizontally. Some just got the lightning, like we did. Some got all of it. A house, in Denville (near here) got hit and burned - just proving how fortunate we were.