And the Tower Came Tumbling Down

The big wind came, and we got to watch as it blew most everything off the neighbor's roof.
Dust filled the sky, making it a dark, foggy looking gray.
The wind was blowing when I got up in the morning. It was pretty stiff, but not too unusual. We can get winds that shake the house, rattle windows and whistles down chimney pipes. But I felt like something was different. I made breakfast for the kids and I and started over my plans for the day, but they were not to be. I felt impressed to fill pitchers of drinking water, and have my daughter fill the bathtub with flushing water. Just about the time that was done, and my husband was going to head over to the office, the wind really picked up. Things were really rattling and banging around outside. My daughter looked out the window, and screeched, "The wind just blew Daddy's tower down!" I couldn't believe it! My husband went shooting outside, as did the kids. If I had known how strong the wind was, I wouldn't ave let them go. I raced to change from a skirt to jeans, thinking my husband might need some help.

Once outside I couldn't see anyone. I couldn't find my husband. I ran to the road, and found a flying garbage can that I captured and ran to stuff in the shop. It almost carried me away. I found my husband wrestling with a large antenna piece that had broken off his 90 foot ham radio tower. He was trying to hold it on the ground. I ran to the house for something. Then my daughter came in to tell me that the wind had blown away daddy's eye glasses, leaving him sitting there virtually blind. He had no idea which way they went. The wind was close to 100 mph, by our best guess, but no one really knows. The highest recorded was 78 mph, but that was several miles away, and they don't know what the wind speeds were after their instruments stopped working. My husband says it was the strongest wind he had ever been in, and he has been in some really windy places before.
The wind did damage at almost every house on our road. Trees and branches knocked to the ground. The wind didn't take any of our trees, but it really messed up the winter remains of my garden. The leeks no longer has tops, and the kale was uprooted. Bark was blown away, and landscaping cloth pulled up.
The biggest surprise of all was to find my husband's tower in a twisted pile stretched across the driveway. He says it was well secured with guy lines. But for it to go down as it did, two guy lines must have snapped at once. He found evidence of a bolt as big as his finger snapped in two. But do you know what the miracle is? The tower didn't hit the shop, any nearby vehicles, or the power lines, and it could of done so. God is good. Even in the bad things we find his care. He was with us in the storm.