Summer storm

The day after the kids came home from my parents house we had a HUGE storm both in Raleigh and in Albemarle!  Brayden had a soccer game that evening so we were all at the soccer field and we knew that a storm was coming, but we didn't know it was going to come that FAST!  The sky went from partly cloudy with a light breeze and temps in the mid-90s to a black sky, serious wind, and temps in the 70s in a matter of about 5 minutes!  It was CRAZY!  Obviously, the kids didn't get to play soccer which was a bit disappointing but everyone stayed safe which was more important.

We arrived home to this....

Our one tree in the front yard was in 4 pieces!  We actually think it got stuck by lightening the way it split apart.  Matt, his dad, and my BIL all got it hauled away the next day.  We still need to get the stump ground down though...that is happening soon though!  There was a bit of other damage around Raleigh with occasional trees down, but nothing like what hit Albemarle.  This monster storm came though and destroyed the town!  I have never seen anything like it. Thankfully, no one was hurt or killed during or after the storm. 

My parents lost about 5 or 6 trees, thankfully none on the house, but their next door neighbors were not so lucky.  This all happened on a Thursday evening and we went to town a full week +1 day later and this is what we saw.

A tree was through the center of this house

There is a carport under that tree...

Another house that was crushed

My parents street as we arrived.  We had to turn on the bright lights (it was late at night) to be able to see down their normally quiet, peaceful street.  The piles are bigger now I am told because so much more has been cut up at this point. 

The pile in front of my parents house.  It is at least 8 feet tall!

See how tiny they look in front of the pile?

Unfortunately, they have had several more storms on top of LOTS of rain which has meant more trees/big limbs down all over town.   Debris pickup is supposed to start this week and is expected to take about 2 weeks (hard to believe considering that my parents street was not hit that hard in comparison to the rest of town)!