July 3rd:

{This was our storm}

It's nearly Independence day, and right now, people in our area are feeling very DEPENDENT.  Dependent on electricity, dependent on air conditioners, dependent on cell phones and chargers and dependent on businesses to keep us afloat, when our homes can no longer house us.

Hometownstations.com-WLIO- Lima, OH News Weather Sports

Hometownstations.com-WLIO- Lima, OH News Weather Sports

Well, my apologies for my delay in updates this week, however, due to one of the worst storms in recent history, I've been without Internet access, I've missed work, been held hostage by a parking lot gate and became a professional tree trimmer since we last spoke.  A storm can change a lot of things as it turns out.

Friday around three p.m. I got a text on my phone from Jerimy telling me that there was a very bad storm headed my way.  He also mentioned that he was nearly killed by a barrel that came at him going about 100 mph when he went out to the parking lot to roll up his windows in his car.  First of all, THANK GOD he got out of the way fast enough to avoid collision.  I can't tell you the wreck I'd be if anything ever happened to him....but anyway, so he warns me the storm is coming, and I warn my mother, who's in Delphos, while I'm in Lima.  The storm is coming for Delphos, and wind speeds are clocking at 100 and 90 miles per hour as it comes.

With warnings given to me from Jerimy and to my mother from me, there was nothing left for me to do, but to sit at my desk, awaiting 4:00 p.m. when it was time for me to head for home.  I worried the storm would reach us about the same time we were to leave.

As the storm progressed across Ohio, Jerimy sent me text messages of the damage he witnessed as he trailed behind the storm from New Haven Indiana, to home.  What he witnessed and then reported to me was eye opening.  I knew it was bad, and it was nerve racking to have Jerimy behind the storm, and me in front of it, not knowing what further damage was to come.

First the email came in to me from Van Wert, my friend Angie was at work there and she gave me her perspective as it hit....not good.

Then, as it hit Delphos, I texted my Mother, to make sure she was ok, but I couldn't get through to her.  I got worried.

By ten til 4:00, the storm had made it from New Haven Indiana, to Lima, Ohio, and I watched as the sky went from clear to black.  Our gigantic flag outside my window began to be tormented by the wind, and the temperature dropped, almost so drastically that you could see it.  The power flickered and then failed and myself and my co-workers stood huddled around the window by my desk, watching the destruction as it passed.  I saw roofs being ripped off, heavy metal trashcans blown over and then away....it was no sissy of a storm.  It didn't last long, perhaps a mere 20 minutes, but when it started to move on away from Lima, we decided to try and make a break for it.  However, at my office building, the parking lot has gates that require a key card to get into....and as luck would have it, those key card kiosks also need electricity to operate.  So there we all were, my entire office of remaining staffers, and we were being held hostage by our parking gates!

The cell lines were in and out, one minute you had it, the next you didn't.  So after a quick chat with our maintenance man Dan, My boss Greg broke the gate down so we could go home for the weekend, that is IF we still had homes to go home to!

Lima was a mess, power lines down all over, every road I turned on seemed like another road I couldn't make it all the way down!  Lines were long, lights were out, it was chaos everywhere you looked.  On my venture back to Delphos, I saw trees uprooted, seasonal rooms torn right off of houses, power line after power line, torn to the ground.

When I got back to Delphos, it was like a different town.  There were no more lawns, only tree branch resting places.  The oldest most beautiful shade bearing trees through the entire town had been torn down, and thrown to the ground.  They were on houses, they were on cars, they were on fences and streets.  They were everywhere.  It was like nothing I'd seen before in all of my 34 years of life.

My house survived without damage, however the tree in my back yard took a hit, and the tree next to Jerimy's blew down and crashed into the neighbor's.  Needless to say, we spent the next two days in total clean-up-effort-mode.  Good thing I grew up with a father who sent me and my sisters out to the woods to chop wood for our wood burning stove every year I was old enough to carry sticks!  Jerimy and I whittled away branch by branch, limb by limb until there wasn't anything left, but a entire tree trunk laying horizontally in the yard.  We're going to make a bench out of it to sit around the fire ring.  Should be nice.  It was Jerimy's favorite tree, so this way, we get to keep the ole "favorite-tree" around for years to come.

There are still many without power, the town's still a disaster, but I really have to report that in this craptastic time, so many came out to help their friends and neighbors.  There were people out and about helping each other through this difficult time, and once more, I'm reminded that this little community of ours, is a small town treasure.  People here, really do show up for one another when it matters most.

Hopefully the rest of the week, Delphos, Ottoville, Fort Jennings, Lima, Spencerville and Van Wert (just to name a few)....get back to some sort of normalcy, and we can all enjoy the 4th of July without the worry and strife that comes with the aftermath of this storm.