Weekend Weather Warnings.

Please gather and listen closely, beep beep beep, NOAA weather radar has been tracking not one, not two, but three sever weather threats,beep beep beep. If any of these three weather threats approaches your area take shelter immediately, beep beep, beep. Evacuation is recommended, but if you cannot flee the area find a secure structure, keep your head down and hang on tight.

I am NOT referring to Gustav, Hannah, or Ike. We had our own weather emergencies this weekend. Hurricane Gracie made landfall in Deer Park Ohio at a friends house on Sunday late afternoon. Tropical storms were also weathered in our home in Maineville, and while shopping in Jeffersonville. If NOAA weather radar reported any disturbances in the atmosphere above southwestern Ohio or recommended evacuation of the area between Columbus and Frankfort, no worries, it was just Gracie having a truly large Hunan meltdown.

Now for the report:

After leaving church on Sunday we drove back to the old neighborhood to have a cook out type gathering with friends. It has been some time, years perhaps, since this particular group, (dubbed the cult following at one point, but that's a different story) all gathered to spend the day together. The group consists of 4 couples and too many kids to count for sure, but I think it was 9 kids, plus boyfriends and passersthru. Gracie was 'building strength' all day long as she played at 100MPH getting hotter and more tired with each passing minute. As her temperature rose and her winds picked up, she finally hit a critical mass and achieved CAT1 status when she slipped and jammed a finger. She came to momma to be comforted. Momma noticed just how hot she was so she rolled her hair up in a bun to keep it off the back of her neck. This was a mistake. Gracie hates a bun, says it looks 'weird' so the fight ensues. Once Gracie starts screaming momma cant back down, but the more they butt heads the more the winds pick up. When this storm first hit the coast there were four guys, four ladies and 3 kids in the room. Once land fall was achieved there was me and 4 ladies and Gracie in the room. Just goes to prove men and kids are like animals, we sense danger and flee. I was the stubborn one who wouldn't leave town and tried to weather the storm in my mobile home. Didn't go so well. Mom took Gracie into the other room to uh, chat, about things, this produced even louder, if that were possible, screams. Momma comes back in and sits down, Gracie floods back in, but now she's mad. She is screaming that she wants to move out and doesn't like anybody any more because we are all mean and don't listen to her. One of the other mothers is now teasing her which just causes more wind speed and know we are at a CAT2. Somebody comments that their ears are now bleeding and I notice that some of the men and kids have now not just left the room, but left the zip code, the evacuation is on. Momma looks at me and says ,"do something" so I 'tell' her to come with me outside, bad move on my part, should have asked. Momma, bobbing her head, joins me outside. I felt like we needed to 'discuss' a plan on how to handle this without Gracie hearing it so once we came to some agreement we could present an united front, I also dont believe in 'discussing' things in front of others (read that 'argue') Well, the problem is that Gracie wanted to follow us outside and tell us off some more, but one of the mothers knew what we were doing so she decided to help by snagging Gracie right in front of the door and carrying her back into the living room. For us at the time this was appreciated and very helpful, to Gracie, this jumped her from CAT2 all the way to CAT4. She was brought before the other moms and they fixed her hair back the way she wanted it and sent/allowed her to go upstairs with her mentor, her favorite teen. This teen provided comfort until we came back inside and then Gracie came back downstairs being carried and cuddled by the teen. She then, politely, asked the teen to set her down, second landfall ensued at CAT4 levels. I snatched her up and outside we went to try and minimize anymore storm damage. We were outside for about 30 minutes with her screaming at me, telling me what a 'not very nice', 'rude', 'stupid' person I was. She told me she was going to put all of us under the car and 'die' us. She was going to through me down the stairs, (and proceeded to push me as we were sitting on the top step) and 'die' me. She wanted us to move out and go away because we were mean and didn't listen even when she said please cause we made her look 'weird' and let other people grab her. Like all storms, once she got far enough inland the fuel began to burn out. She left a large wake of destruction from the storm surge, but eventually the winds died down and we were left with just some rain, and of course a horse voice. Two less impressive CAT1 storms followed the next day, mostly left overs from the big storm. We weathered and we have rebuilt, without the help of FEMA. I look forward to the day that hurricane seasons become shorter and shorter, this has been an unusually busy season as of late. Usually we have a storm every 4 or 5 weeks, not 3 in 24 hours.