We turned on the tv and caught the weather bulletins, and got ourselves dressed. Soon we had the curtains all opened up and our lights on in case a tenter or two might seek refuge at the host sight, and at least they could see we were up and monitoring the situation.
Our rangers left at 11p.m. so nobody is on duty. But a county sheriff came through the park with lights flashing and a repeating message on his loudspeaker instructing people to seek shelter (the block building shower house) and storms were approaching at the rate of 65 mph. He slowly drove up and down each of the six roads of the campground repeating his recorded message and alerting everyone of the impending storm.
We gathered flashlights and our wallets and were ready to head out if needed. Steve lowered our awning and I watched the tv and listened to the updates of the weather radio. The storms passed to north of us about 20-30 miles and we were in the clear. WHEW!
About 2 a.m. we finally went back to sleep... safe and sound.
Interesting though, a complaint from a camper wandering by in the morning. He was actually complaining that sheriff's radio speaker woke him up (duh? it's supposed to!) and the flashing lights going wasn't enough to make him worried? He complained the scratchy sounds from the speakers of the sheriff's car were distorted and he couldn't hear what the sheriff was saying, so he went back to sleep???? Geeesh, the sheriff risks life and limb to drive through a heavily wooded campground where at any minute a tree could fall on his car, just to warn all of us campers.... and that is the type of appreciation he gets? OH VEY! Can't fix stupid.
Also another camper complained to me about the raccoons that got into his cooler. Where did he leave it? On his picnic table. Okayyyyyyy Then he proceeded to recite to me a complete shopping list of all the groceries that were eaten. Okayyyyyyyyy I am thinking to myself: was he looking for us to go shopping for him to replace his groceries? I suppose, since it was a "park raccoon" that did it, somehow we must be responsible to replace his groceries? LOL I finally gave him directions to the nearest grocery store and left it at that.
But I digress... most people were just thankful we didn't have the damages and troubles that another campground had between Kaukauna and DePere. They lost roofs off some campers, and trees down all over and lots of damages but no major injuries, thank goodness.
We only had a few branches down here and there, no trees down... and our power stayed on all night long. Areas north and west of us fared much worse. They had winds in excess of 100 mph. They had roofs blown off, power lines down and roads blocked by trees. We tuned into the local news at 6 a.m. to see the damages all north of us. We were in the clear.
It was still a damp wet morning, and very humid too. It was too wet to shovel any firepits, plus all the rain would make for very messy heavy shovel fulls of ashes. Instead, I set up my sewing machine outside and worked on some quilted hot pads in the morning.
Various folks stopped by the site to get updates on the weather, find out where the worst road blockages were and if there were any more storms coming our way. Many thousands of people north of us in the Appleton and Wrightstown areas didn't have power and many places were closed due to that outage.
My sock knitting pal Peggy came down about 3 p.m. to get some spiffing up on her sock machine settings. With a little tweak here and touch up there, she soon had it cranking away like a perfect machine. Whhheeee heeeeee she will be working on socks in no time now.
We chatted with our camping neighbors here and there, and ran around the campground a few times to check on things. Kinda fun to zoom around in our little Cub Cadet Cart. It's running just great now that Steveio did it's wonderful tuneup.
After a nice stir fry meal, we settled into our lawn chairs with adult beverages and I had my spinning wheel. I spun well into the darkness, and do it mostly by feel anyhow than by actual sight. Got another bobbin full of sock yarn done. Sooo pretty in blues and they will make some cozy socks for winter.
Tomorrow morning I should hit up the last few remaining campsites to clear out the fire pits, and doublecheck any of the ones leaving tomorrow so they are clean before weekenders show up. Most of the park is reserved for the upcoming weekend so it will be a busy one.
Let's see what tomorrow will bring?
Glad everyone made it through the storm unscathed. Yes, we have campers who lose food to the critters even though I am very adamant that everything needs to be put in their vehicle, even the coolers... and yes, some think we should replace their loss. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, by the way, as always :-)
So thankful you were safe. It has been over a year since we have had to endure such storms.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow will bring, for us, fresh oysters from the Pacific, a farmer's market in the town of Eureka, Ca...and a few tours.... wish you were here with us.
Our local news just confirmed that it was officially two tornados that touched down north of us! Whew.... glad we were safe!
ReplyDeleteI would have been terrified. So glad to hear that you guys are safe and the worst of it went north. But I feel so bad for everyone who had damage. And you are so right - you can't fix stupid and there is always at least one if not more in any campground.
ReplyDeleteGlad you came through unscathed from the storm. Just tell the cooler complainers they were just so lucky it wasn't a bear. lol
ReplyDeleteYou handled that storm much better than I would have! Glad everything was okay.
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