Wednesday
The day began routinely. The temperature rose rapidly as the morning progressed, but we were making good progress on the house. Mitch and his helpers sprayed the ceiling midmorning, and the interior walls were painted by midafternoon. YoUTurn members left after lunch to prepare for a 6:00 p.m. July 4 concert in the city park in Willaimsburg.
Then things got interesting. We noticed that the inside of the house become uncomfortably dark for work as heavy clouds rolled in. A light sprinkle cooled things a bit without causing much inconvenience. Suddenly the wind picked up, threatening the tents. People gathered round the tents to hold them down, and Russ Talley was lifted off the ground by his corner of the tent. People in the house noticed a funnel cloud touching down beyond the trees beyond the tents. They shouted warnings to those in the tent area to no avail. As the funnel cloud moved away. The site cell phone rang with a message from Ramon of a tornado warning for our area. Roger had someone repeatedly sound a car horn as an alert. Within about three minutes, everyone on the site was in one of the two crawl spaces.
Stafford stayed just outside the door to the crawl space and saw a second funnel pass around the site, snapping trees along the way. Two doors that were propped up outside to dry were damaged by the winds, but there was little damage otherwise.
After about twenty minutes the tornadoes left the area and the group emerged. Before much more work could be done, a second tornado warning sounded, and we decided to leave the site. The YoUTurn concert had to be canceled because of the lightnng danger. The good news is that we enjoyed a more relaxing and rushed evening than usual, and gathered around the hotel to watch the town fireworks display. (The really good news is that all of us are safe.)
We are in pretty good shape in spite of the interruption. We will leave for the job site around 6:40 tomorrow morning. We expect to hook up temporary power to the house tomorrow morning. Painting is near completion.
Photos from today are below. Sorry for the somewhat abbreviated collection due to a busy day and a sudden departure. We have also cut down the size of the larger images today because the noisy phone lines are making for unreliable modem service as we upload the photos.
Click any photo for a larger image. (And tune in tomorrow!)
Page 1 of 2.
Next Page