Michigan “Straight Line Wind” Thunderstorm Damage | April 2014

I was making Italian subs for everyone last night when Rick mentioned we had a storm headed our way.

It was right before dusk, and the clouds rolled in heavy.

I kept one eye on the subs and one on the window.

It was then, I noticed leaves and debris swimming in the air.

They were way up high against the dark sky,

and moving sideways like fish in a pond.

I forgot about the subs and found the children in the living room.

We had Rick’s brother, girlfriend, and their 3 children with us for the weekend.

Including this beautiful, newborn, baby niece of ours, Welly Anne:

I wasn’t taking any chances.

I yelled for everyone to go down to the basement immediately.

We went down into our walk out and watched the hail hit the windows like I’ve never seen before.

The winds intensified quickly and it seemed as though the windows could blow at any moment.

My hubby seemed to be in some sort of “HAIL TRANCE”,

so I took charge and ordered everyone to follow me into our storm room way in the back of our basement.

It was then, the lights went out, so it was difficult to get down a crowded hall full of “stuff”.

My youngest had her phone on, so that helped.

We made it there safely and waited until it ended.

When we came back upstairs, this is what we saw.

Hail covered the deck/ground and the winds moved our grill/chairs.

Then my daughter noticed one of our favorite Oaks was on the ground 🙁

I just photographed a wreath on this tree a couple weeks ago.

It landed directly onto our DIY brick fire pit.

Even the stumps got it.

Here’s a tree on the water where the roots came up in our next door neighbor’s yard.

I’ve seen golf ball size hail, I’ve seen little hail.

I lived in the South for years and never witnessed this much at once (there was no snow on the ground).

We now know the winds increased to over 70 mph and where categorized as

“Straight Line Winds”.

Seemed like a tornado to me.

My poor hubby has been out there most of the day.

I can’t help much because of my back issues.

We were thinking we could use the big log to make a new bench for our fire pit, or even a dock 🙂

You never know.

Here’s a Pine tree by our driveway that our neighbor cut down because it was leaning towards their drive.

Very sad to see her go.

I know the storm could have been a lot worse.

I am a very thankful Redhead tonight that no one was hurt, and our home will be fine.