Lynchburg, V.A. felt the effects of the 2012 Wind Storm "Derecho" long after it hit on the night of Friday, June 29th. According to Wikipedia a Derecho is:
"a widespread, long-lived, straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms. Generally, derechos are convection-induced and take on a bow echo form of squall line, forming in an area of wind divergence in the upper levels of the troposphere, within a region of low-level warm air advection and rich low-level moisture. They travel quickly in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to an outflow boundary (gust front), except that the wind is sustained and increases in strength behind the front, generally exceeding hurricane-force. A warm-weather phenomenon, derechos occur mostly in summer, especially during June and July in the Northern Hemisphere, within areas of moderately strong instability and moderately strong vertical wind shear. They may occur at any time of the year and occur as frequently at night as during the daylight hours."
On top of the aftermath this storm created, it happened to occur during the hottest weekend/week of the summer. On Saturday, Lynchburg hit 102 degrees, with a real feel of 105 degrees. With about 28,000 AEP (Appalchian Power) costumers in Lynchburg alone without power, you can imagine what many homes felt like by mid-afternoon. We made the decision that night to leave and we were on the road by 7:30 p.m. We were thankful that we were able to escape and spend some time with family and friends in P.A. Many of our Lynchburg friends did the same, traveling to various states to escape the aftermath of the storm. (Some families were stuck in their neighborhoods due to downed trees and were unable to even go to stores and cool off in the air conditioning or get a cooked meal at a local restaurant). By Monday, all of the hotels in Lynchburg became full and families who didn't have places to go either went to surrounding cities looking for lodging, went to stay in cooling centers at local schools, bought generators, or just toughed it out. Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist church began opening their doors to the community soon afterwards for meals and lodging. With so many AEP costumers in Lynchburg without power, and many other surrounding areas and states without power you can imagine what kind of a task AEP had on their hands. Our hospitals (ran on generators until their power was restored), gas stations, and grocery stores were without power for days. With only a few stores or gas stations open, people were running to them, stockpiling on ice, buying generators, or having to wait (sometimes an hour) to get gas. The Wal-mart near our home was hit hard and had to throw out all of their freezer and refrigerator foods, over hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even last weekend when we went grocery shopping (a week after the storm hit) they still hadn't restocked the freezers and fridges, it was somewhat eerie. Anyone who lost power and didn't have a generator to sustain their refrigerator lost their food. We were particularly sad about all of our frozen, homemade jam that we had been looking forward to enjoying throughout the winter.
By Tuesday night our power had been restored, it had been a total of 4 days without power. Some of our friends got it sooner, some of them didn't get it until the weekend. Throughout this experience we've been reminded that it's really important to have battery operated fans/radios, etc... but also that we rely so heavily on electricity that it's scary to think what could have happened if our city had been without power longer or what if the damage had been even more serious? We're thankful that no one was killed during the storm or through the clean-up process, and for the AEP workers/city employees who worked around the clock to get everyone's electricity back on and working. It makes you wonder, how our forefathers did it back in the day? Most of us have become a "spoiled" people, us included, lacking the knowledge to farm/garden and live off of the land. Maybe we should start learning, huh? Or maybe we'll just go buy a generator for next time.
Click the link below to view pictures of the destruction in Lynchburg:
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