Tuesday, August 5, 2008

It was my second night living in Chicago and a very exciting one at that. I've seen some storms but nothing quite like what I experienced on Monday night. About 6 or 7 pm the winds picked up and merciless lightening crashing down on the city and tremendous thunder shook the buildings. The people on the streets were in as much as a frenzy as the night sky. People were running back and forth taking cover as the rain pounded down. Everywhere I walked I heard sirens from police and firetrucks. The city turned on its tornado warning, debris littered the ground, tree branches snapped as the sky continued to unleash its anger on the city all night long. The thunder was so loud that it would actually startle me and the lightening was so intense that the thought of actually being struck crossed my mind several times. To add to the mayhem of the night another bizarre thing happened to me as I left a grocery store about 10:30pm I notice some people gawking at something and a fire truck on an adjacent street. Chicago is full of bars so I thought that some poor fool had drunken himself to a stupor. As I got closer I saw orange flames flickering from inside a store. That was enough to peak my interest and I joined the gawking crowd, watching the fireman break the glass windows of the store and drench the inside with water. About 3 other fire trucks pulled up to help and they quickly extinguished the fire that was supposedly started by a neon sign in the window. A news reporter saw me taking pictures and asked me to send him the pictures because it was so unexpected he didn't have his camera on him. Anyways it was a wild night in the windy city.

1 comment:

Elisabeth said...

Whoa, welcome to the Midwest! Growing up in Wisconsin we had thunder/lightening storms all the time...sometimes accompanied by tornado warnings and funnel clouds...I've lived in Oregon for so long now, though, that I'm startled at even a hint of thunder/lightening. Cool video, btw :)