We left for Wisconsin July 1 and planned on having a nice relaxing 2 months there, playing golf, tennis, pickleball, fishing, hiking, just generally relaxing and enjoying ourselves. Last year when we were there Laura’s mom Elfrieda passed away and we had to deal with all of that, but this time that was all behind us. We were there for two weeks when it hit — THE DERECHO!
What is a derecho you ask? According to Wikipedia:
A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system. Derechos can cause hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, heavy rains, and flash floods.
Our place in Wisconsin is right in the middle of the two circles shown above and was in the hardest hit area of the state. For about two hours late at night we were hit with winds of up to 100 mph. The storm knocked down probably twenty trees on our lake house property and probably fifty on our other house property, where one tree fell on the garage and punched a hole in the roof and broke a skylight (there is a small unoccupied apartment above the garage.)
So long story short we spent the remainder of our supposed vacation, cutting up trees with the chainsaw, hauling branches to the dump, arranging for loggers to come in and do what we could not do ourselves. The power was out for six days so our well was not working and we had no water. We relocated to a motel until they could restore the power. Fun stuff!
Wow! We have dealt with the aftermath of severe snow storms. Never fun especially when you lose power.
Yes, it was not fun. Good thing was, no one got hurt.