What's a Derecho?

A derecho ( /dəˈreɪtʃoʊ/, də-ray-choh, from Spanish: derecho, IPA: [de̞ˈɾe̞tʃo̞], "straight") is a widespread, long-lived,straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms. Generally, derechos areconvection-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 issustained and increases in strength behind the front, generally exceeding hurricane-force. 

Well, there you go.  That's straight from the dictionary.  So why bring that up?  Well, June 28th, Chad, Paul Tobias and Amanda Hawkes (the assistant athletic trainers at SVU) were driving home from St. Louis from the National Convention for Athletic Trainers.  At 9:00 pm, Michelle heard a big gust of wind and went outside to remove things from the deck.  A short time later, our power went out (as did most of the power in towns all along the upper east coast).  The Derecho hit hard, knocking down Large trees, crushing buildings, houses, cars!  Toppling all the same things as well.  It was a very devastating storm.  So, we spent Saturday at home, in the basement to stay cool and out of the very hot June weather we were having.  We had to make some adjustments as well.  One of those was what we had for dinner that night.  Well, we had no power, and things were melting in the freezer, so we told the kids, "Guess what, we are going to have ice cream for dinner and you get to eat AS MUCH AS YOU WANT!"  They enjoyed that a ton.

Another was breakfast.  Well, we enjoy camping, so it wasn't very weird to cook breakfast over an open fire...except it was the fire of the grill.  So, we had pancakes and eggs, grill style!

Sunday was even hotter, mid-way into the 90's with some serious humidity.  So after going to church, we decided to head to Chad's office at the school, were we had heard, the electricity was back on.  Chad had gone over early in the morning with the crock pot and plugged it in at the athletic training room so we could have dinner that night.  So, here the kids are enjoying dinner in Chad's office after church.

The whole family enjoyed Cafe Training room...it was a big hit

They look so happy to have now gone 2 full days without power!!

We decided to head home to sleep because there wasn't enough room in Chad's office, and were just figuring out how we were going to survive the heat, when a member of the bishopric called and asked if we wanted to stay at SVU's Carriage Houses - School owned student housing townhouses.  The electricity there had come back on, and so they were calling some of the few of us left to see if we wanted to use them, free of charge, for as long as needed.  Well, needless to say the thought of electricity and a cool nights sleep made us jump at the offer.  What a blessing!!  We were grateful for a Wonderful bishopric, newly called mind you (Bishop Doxey had only been called a couple weeks previous) who were very aware and thinking of the ward members in need.  It was like coming full circle for us when we pulled up to the Townhouses, and found out we were assigned to Townhouse #315.  That happened to be the same exact townhouse we stayed in 7 years ago when we arrived in BV...again at the time...with nowhere else to go.  So, we slowly moved in to the townhome, and 5 days later (The 4th of July), we were excited to come back to our house.  We had been at the Grawrocks for a 4th of July dinner and saw some of the Dominion Power guys fix a transformer.  We pulled out of their driveway and watched them do it for a couple minutes.  When they finished, Landon said, "yeah, now our power is back on."  We were hopeful, but not sure.  But sure enough, we drove up to our house, and as we did, Chad noticed that the little light on the doorbell button was on from the street, and yelled, "OUR POWER IS ON!!!"  We were all so excited to sleep in our own beds that night!  There's no place like home!!!!

Heres a few pictures captured from the derecho...

 Yeah those are the clouds.  Pictures don't quite do it justice, but it was pretty freaky!  Chad, Paul and Amanda didn't arrive home till 2:00 am Saturday morning.  They drove through the Derecho through West Virginia.  At times only driving 20 mph.  But that is the clouds they saw.  Michelle keeps asking Chad all the time, "Why didn't you stop."  They saw tractor trailers and RV's pulled off to the side swaying to the point of tipping over, and ever saw a few that had tipped over.  Well, honestly, NOBODY has ever heard of a Derecho before this happened, and most of us thought, "we just had a WHAT?  What in the world is that?"  So, what Chad thought while driving and seeing these clouds were, "huh, that is strange, what is that?  Well, it looks like it's going to rain!"

 When I say there were trees down EVERYWHERE, they literally were down everywhere!

There were even streets and places completely blocked off.  Chad and Paul and Amanda had to stop on the freeway a couple times for up to 1 hour a couple times because trees had fallen and completely blocked the freeway and they had to wait for crews to chop them up and clear a lane.