My entire life, I have absolutely loved big storms.
I don’t know what it is about pounding rain, ringing thunder, and flashes of brilliant lightening, but I’m completely entranced by these big weather events.
I enjoy sitting out, watching the trees bend, and feeling tiny in the immense power of the storm. I also love sleeping peacefully at night, with the sheets of rain lulling me into a deep slumber. I’ve never experienced a large thunderstorm that I didn’t appreciate… until last month. Our region quickly transitioned from bitterly cold winter to hot and humid summer, with very little time in between. With this enormous air quality change, so came a huge series of tumultuous storms. I was in heaven, basking in the sounds and sights… until the air conditioning quit. All of a sudden, there was a huge gust of wind, a loud crash, and the house began to feel quite stagnant. I went to the thermostat to investigate, and found that the air conditioning unit had gone offline. Peering out back into the darkness, I saw our AC unit hidden beneath a large limb when the next flash of lightning lit up the yard. Fantastic. It was so brutal outside that we couldn’t even venture out to investigate the central cooling system damage. We thought that was going to be a terrible expense, but had no idea what else was coming our way. With another huge gust of wind, a large limb fell onto the side of our house, crushing the west wall and bringing the air ducts down with it. Not only did we gain a huge insurance claim and home construction project, but our entire central cooling system and huge portion of our air ductwork had to be replaced in the wake of the storms.