Blogathon 2009 – Midwest Summer Storms

Comments 5 by John Bollwitt

Post #41 of #49 – Over the next 24 hours I will be raising funds for the Union Gospel Mission during Blogathon 2009 by writing a blog post every 30 minutes. Please consider donating to my cause to keep my going until 6am PT July 26th.

The following guest post was contributed by John Bollwitt

Lightning

Hanging out at WorkSpace today for Blogathon, Rebecca snapped this great picture. It’s one of many, many streaks of lightning that filled the sky in the late afternoon, and these things aren’t that common. I don’t think I’ve seen a storm like that in about four years, which is when I moved here from eastern Iowa.

In the Midwest, you expect these things, and that’s because you have to.

As I watched the wall cloud come in over Mt. Seymour, that was a site that would strike a little fear into your gut as it came out of the horizon back home. What followed that was anyone’s guess. Intense wind to bust up trees, torrents of rain that could sweep your car off the road, baseball sized hail that would lead to cheap new car prices on damaged stock, or the ever friendly tornado that might knock on your door as an uninvited guest.

Watching the lightning zap the holy hell out of the mountains, it reminded me of those times when it was, “Get to the basement!” And it always seem like at that very moment, you’ve got to pee. The adrenaline kicks in and you do what you’ve been told over and over to do in school, but you still have this worst timing hit you at the same time.

That’s because tornadoes are pretty damn scary. They are additively fascinating to try and catch a glimpse of, but you just don’t want it to get too close because I’ve driven through towns that were ripped apart on a direct hit. I’ve grasped onto my mother under a blanket while the wind thumped against our house, sort of saying good-byes to each other through mutual I Iove yous.

That was one of my first times being on the radio when WMT called our house to speak to a witness. I barely had my nerves together enough to say my name correctly yet alone recount all the trees and power lines down in our neighborhood.

Everyone seems to have a personal story or knows a story of someone else with experiences like this. You can never be too careful when it comes to any storm, but the one that reached downtown today was fairly impressive in its own right. Like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen something like that.


Photo credit: penmachine on Flickr

About John: John Bollwitt is a blogger, podcaster, radio broadcast engineer and Co-Founder of sixty4media. You can find him on Twitter @JohnBollwitt.

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5 Comments  —  Comments Are Closed

  1. TinaSunday, July 26th, 2009 — 2:02am PDT

    Four hours to go! Almost there!

  2. Midwest Summer Storms | johnbollwitt.comSunday, July 26th, 2009 — 2:24am PDT

    […] was published originally on Miss604.com as apart of Blogathon […]

  3. ZanstormSunday, July 26th, 2009 — 2:59am PDT

    I love storms. They fascinate me to no end. I was going to join a Cloud 9 Tornado chasing tour but it was way too expensive. Someday I’ll try and see one. It’s a dream. But I’ll do it on my own time.
    Great lightning shots

  4. ZanstormSunday, July 26th, 2009 — 3:01am PDT

    Check this out..
    http://xenophilius.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/christuppa1202_468x361.jpg

  5. TylerSunday, July 26th, 2009 — 11:32am PDT

    Nice lightning shots! So much lightning, I loved it!

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