So it seems that each area of the country has it's own unique "weather" phenomena.
- Houston it was hurricanes and floods primarily.
- Mississippi it was both hurricanes and tornadoes.
- Boston it was crazy nor'easters (they get hurricanes too).
Upon moving to Denver, we had thought we were pretty safe, as we considered the potential natural disasters. Denver is not exactly known for its floods, hurricanes or tsunamis (300 days of sunshine a year!). Blizzards are occasional but rather rare and so long as you have sufficient food and water they tend to melt away in time. We're fairly safe from earthquakes and, while we get our fair share of hail storms, we're close enough to the mountains that tornadoes rarely have a chance to form. We get some crazy winds - like 50-70 mph, but normally they don't do much damage. Last week we learned our vulnerability.
We had quite the thunderstorm last week (the first of the season). At one point, lightening struck very close by - close enough to scramble my computer (causing it to open several hundred programs at once). Shortly after the hit, I began hearing sirens - giving us flashbacks to this. I looked out the window to see where the ruckus was - and what I saw did not give me comfort. There were two glowing red sections in the open space that backs up to our house. At that point it had been very dry and we had not had any measurable precipitation for several weeks. The fires were less than a mile away and the wind was blowing 50-60 mph at that point. Thankfully the fire department was on the scene within probably a minute of the flare up and had it under control quickly (although there were flashing lights for hours in the open space). The next morning we woke up to a scarred and blackened section out in the open space. Scary enough, I think we've found our vulnerability. I am thankful for a responsive fire department and hope we never have to deal with this kind of natural disaster in any closer proximity than we did.
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