I've just had another genuine American West experience: getting hit by a tornado! I'm fine, though, since I wasn't particularly close to the path of it - and in any case, no known casualities in Laramie. It still had some pretty fearsome power, though: perfectly horisontal hail the size of marbles, all the cars in the Ford dealership getting their windshields blown out, equipment sheds flying around and big trees getting uprooted. Rumor has it that it killed at least one person south of us, where it was worst. The main effect in Laramie was probably knocking out much of the power grid, but fortunately it turned back on just 30 minutes ago. Hopefully no-one got hurt, although if there were people in the greenhouse north of Walmart (the tornado touched down there and ripped it open)...
In some sense I guess we should've seen it coming. The weather has been really screwy for days, with rain and thunder coming left and right. It also poured down for more than 12 straight hours, which has only happened once here in the last four years or so. And as a final Official Bad Omen, they showed the movie "Twister" on TV last night! We didn't see any green clouds on the horizon, but it's not like I have windows in my lab to see out of. Nonetheless, I'm a bit taken aback. Discounting the odd storm (Gudrun comes to mind) and some flash flooding, there is no such thing as a "natural disaster" back home. Being trapped at the Department for a few hours, waiting for the wind to subside, felt like something of a personal insult. Maybe I shouldn't move to California, after all.
But now all is fine and dandy. The fridge kept its cool through the power outage, so I'm enjoying some beer and cookies while I type this up. Didn't get much done at work, admittedly, but I'm pretty happy I was there instead of up at Vedauwoo -- my home crag reputedly got absolutely trashed by the winds. Guess we'll be pulling downed trees off the roads for a few weeks now. Bummer, because the summer climbing season proper had just started, with the very first Official T-Shirt Day coming in on Tuesday. The weather certainly is crazy here in the Cowboy State, but that's part of the charm. "Bless Wyoming and keep it wild", as Helen Mettler once put it.
