Storm

Tonight there was a severe thunderstorm that came through the area, although it moved away fairly quickly. I took some pictures of the back yard during the storm, before Aaron had come home from work. He was stuck on the highway because traffic was moving rather slow due to the rain, hail, and standing water.

The first pictures are at the beginning of the storm.



Then the view from the porch.


Then the flooded back yard about 30 minutes into the storm.



During the storm, which had almost blown itself out by this point, we started making dinner, potato leek soup, which was delicious. Around 6:30pm, however, we lost power. The electric range stayed hot for a while, and with a lid on, the soup kept cooking, until about 8pm, by which point we were getting hungry. After making sure the chicken was cooked all the way through, we poured ourselves a bowl, ate, and then put the remaining soup in the freezer (which was cooler than the fridge, seeing as there was still no power in the house. We lost power for about three hours total, not getting it back until a little after 9pm. The power had threatened to come on, but flickered off shortly a couple of times during this three hours. When the power finally came on for the last time a little after nine (and STAYED on), we remained in the bedroom, reading our books that we had been earlier by candle light.

About twenty minutes into this, I get up, smelling something, and ask, "Did you leave the burner on?" I knew the answer, but just wanted to be sure. I could smell something not quite burning, but getting close, and went into the kitchen. Sure enough, one of the kitchen towels was laying on the burner that, for three hours, hadn't been on. But for the last twenty minutes, it HAD been on. No harm done, just scraping some burnt plastic off the burners, and running the poor towel under water.



Only three weeks at the apartment, and we've almost set it on fire. Thank goodness I have a good nose (Aaron hadn't smelled it because his nose was stuffy). The towel had been placed on the stove when the power was out, and the heat was off, and neither of us had thought to turn the electric burner off after we took the pot of soup off. We will have to be more careful from now one. I hate electric ranges, they are dangerous and remain hot long after they've been turned off. Grr.