Last night I had an experience like no other. This is one of those water cooler stories. The camp that I work for in the summer puts on a one-night carnival every year; this summer's was last night.
Every summer, when there is a threat of bad weather, we usually are prepared to hold the carnival the following night. When bad weather has come in past years, it has usually always come during the day, in the hours before the carnival actually began. However, this year, the carnival had already started...we were a little over an hour into it, and had another hour-and-a-half to go. The carnival is set in a local park under trees, surrounding a picnic pavilion. We always have games set up as well as a dunk tank, a food tent, a prize tent, and a ticket sale tent. I was manning the ticket tent at the start of a path leading to the game area. All went well for the first hour...people came by mentioning they heard we may get some rain...but there wasn't even a cloud in the sky. So, we figured we'd get through the night without any problems. Well, we were very wrong.
A storm came in and hit so fast that it literally sent people running madly to their cars. Just as the sky was beginning to get dark, the wind immediately picked up and began throwing debris into the air. The long (and heavy) table that I was sitting at lifted up and just about toppled onto me in my chair...my boss just happened to be coming over to tell me to be prepared just as this was happening...he saved me from the table crushing me as well as from the tent (poles and all) collapsing on me.
At that point, most of the patrons had gotten to their cars. However, all of us camp staff, as well as park staff, were still there hurrying to get all of our equipment under the pavilion. As we did this, the wind continued to whip up even stronger--throwing food, paper, napkins, tickets, etc. everywhere and lifting up our tents and tables! We got all of the important stuff under the pavilion just as sheets of rain began driving down and lightning was striking throughout the sky. It was so bad by this time that we were safer staying underneath the pavilion rather than trying to run through the trees out to our cars. It was not long before we began to see trees falling around us, almost landing on someone's car. Fire whistles were blowing, sirens were sounding, hail was falling...basically, it was chaos. Although we had a roof above our heads, we were still soaked as rain was driving sideways with the wind. So, we were wet, we were freezing, and yes, some people started freaking out. It took a little bit of humor and group leadership to get everyone to stay calm. And, yes, there was also a little bit of Milli Vanilli to help out. Some of the counselors were just waiting for the perfect time this summer to start singing "Blame It On the Rain" and actually mean it...who knew we'd have such an apropos chance?
I am happy to say that after about 45 minutes to an hour of being stuck under the pavilion during the worst of the storm, we were able to then get all of our equipment put away, and everyone did get home safely. However, driving was treacherous. All of us saw the majority of traffic lights in the area completely out, and trees down in the road, as we drove home. It was the talk of today as many people in the area had power outages (which were still out throughout the day)...trees are still down, some roads are closed, awnings were blown off, and small branches are all over our streets and yards. We also spotted a news helicopter hovering overhead this afternoon, surveying the damage. There was some talk and speculation of whether or not a tornado had touched down anywhere, but this has not been confirmed.
It definitely was a night to remember--not one that I want to experience again anytime in the near future.
