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lostmymarblz
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Location: Edmonton Alberta Canada
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 Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
Saturday night we had two storms. One was at about 7:30 to 8:30. Lightning and thunder and sheets of rain hit. We were at home and I watched the fire lane through our townhouse complex become a river. Thunder was deafening. After an hour, it stopped and the Environmnet Canada weather website said that the Severe Thinderstorm Warning had finished. But....
At 10:00 another storm rolled in. This time the west winds blew my windows shut and hail started pelting the house. There was lighting high up in the clouds, though no thunder could be heard - a totally wrong response in my many years with summer storms. We watched out the windows as long as we could before our prescribed sleeping meds began to take effect and we went to bed.
The next morning, when my clock had no numbers on it, I figured there must have been a downed power line in the neighbourhood. It was about 6:00 am. I got up, had a look around outside from the sheltered basement walk out patio. The rain had stopped and I couldn't see any damage to any of the townhouses nearby.
I went back inside to contemplate what I would do during the power outage when a car passed our house on the fire lane. It had run over something. OMG, I thought, someone's house had been damaged and the debris must have been what the car had run over. In my PJs and bathrobe, I went out the front door and saw something on the fire lane. When I got closer to it, I realized it was a power meter from someone's house.
But it wasn't just from anyone's house - it was from ours  I picked it up, brought it inside and called Chris to come down to see it. The meter, where it connected to the house, was slightly charred. Chris and I went outside to look at the place where the meter had been. It was also slightly charred.
It was then that we realized that it was only our house had no electricity. All the other townhouses had either doorbells lit up or air conditioners working. Chris phoned the power company and got a recorded message saying that there were downed power lines in several areas of the city and that expected time of repair was later that afternoon. However, our problem was that our power meter had been blown off our house and that we had to contact the power company to have it repaired.
After several tries, he eventually got put on hold - for two hours!!!! When he finally got to talk to an operator, she had to put him on hold because a fire department call was coming in She got back to Chris very quickly and took our information, but could not offer a time for repair.
Oh, great, I thought. We could be without power until late at night! What was I going to do with my day without electricity?!!?? I couldn't even check the weather because to do that would mean that my computer had to work. No TV to pass the time, no computer to do any of the things I normally do. Then I thought I'd take a shower, but only cold water came out. Our water heater must have had an electrical component to make it operate. NOW WHAT!!!???!!
Of course. Call a neighbour and ask for help. I was able to have a shower, store our frozen foods, and make my breakfast in their microwave. What nice neighbours to help us in our time of need  The husband suggested that lightning probably struck nearby and it was a power surge from the lightning that blew off the power meter. The meter was probably designed to blow off instead of allowing electricity to enter the home and kill everything electrical inside.
At 11:30 am, about two hours after our call to the power company, a power company truck drove up and popped on a new meter. It didn't seem to bother them that there was a little damage to the part that was on the house. We checked the fridge, tv, computers, lights and everything was back to life. I thanked the power company guys over and over and was so glad we didn't have to go through a whole day without power.
When I got back to my computer and looked on some local news sites, I found several articles on the storm...
YouTube video of the second storm at the summer fair
Photo gallery of the storm
Newspaper article about the storm
Today I'm thinking we got off lucky, even though the event shook us up pretty badly. Our power had probably been out since shortly after we'd fallen asleep, but at least our whole neighbourhood hadn't been affected. Our house could have been severely damaged by the power surge, but wasn't, and power was restored quite quickly compared to many people in the city.
The storm is being called the worst in Edmonton's history, though 20-some years ago we did have a tornado hit the east end of the city, killing people and damaging many homes. For this storm to overshadow the tornado, it must have done a lot of damage city-wide
Hope you all had less eventful weekends
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7/20/2009, 8:59 am
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SnowmanF
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
Glad to hear you are all okay.
I was just thinking what a terrible weekend I had had, until I read this. In comparison my experience was nothing.
As part of our little SF project I am wanting to do a "Village" thing. I was originally thinking something along the lines of the Japanese site ... http://sylvanian-families.jp/world_view/ Then I wondered, how about a vrml model you could move aruond in, as I have some experience in such things. Went looking for some vrml software, dl a few from a usually reliable site. Instead of opting for one of hoe I had used before I wondered about a new one which came highly recommended.... BIG mistake.
more than 24 hrs later, following a complete reformat of my system harddrive I am very displeased. So lucky I keep all my important files on a separate physical drive. Therefore our little project, and many others, are safe. [Really should back things up more]. Sadly I lost a lot of favorites. So I spent a while finding many links again. Its quite irritating how the first 100 links in a search are all about sales. None of the very nice sites you all have came up! So much for search engines.
Anyway, now I see my "bad experience" wasn't really so bad after all.
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7/20/2009, 12:51 pm
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5hauna
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
Fantastic storm  I love big storms  We sadly do not get many here, however 100km/hr winds are very common and so our trees/buildings and the like are usually left unscathed. Edmonton looks like a very beautiful green city (slightless now).
Thanks for the links. Shauna
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7/20/2009, 5:01 pm
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lostmymarblz
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Location: Edmonton Alberta Canada
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
Shauna,
I love storms, too The lightning is often fantastic here. We don't have mountains to contain our sky and it's endlessly fascinating to watch it change so much.
However, we had a tornado hit the east end of the city in 1987 and many people who lived through it measure time by before the tornado and after it. Whenever it's been a hot day (it was 30 C on Saturday) and a storm brews in the afternoon or evening, people watch the sky with caution - always on the lookout for another tornado. I know two people who had their homes either damaged or completely tossed to smithereens, and it changed everyone's life here. Yes, storms are great, but the damage they can do in an instant is not to be forgotten, at least in our part of the world. We don't have as many tornadoes as in the central US (known as Tornado Alley), but once bitten, twice shy I guess you could say.
I doubt if our house will ever been the victim of another power surge, but it's a possibility. I guess that's another way I'll be measuring time.
Glad you liked the videos. I was surprised that there were so many posted to YouTube. It was interesting to see our city from so many different angles and places. Everyone has a story to tell about that particular storm, I'm sure
If you have time, please post videos of your location. I love travelling the world by the Internet 
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7/20/2009, 7:15 pm
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SnowmanF
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
I've seen many places in this world IRL.
I can surely say you are living in one of the nicest of them.
When in the middle of a crisis you just have to remind yourself of that!
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7/21/2009, 2:26 am
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lostmymarblz
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Location: Edmonton Alberta Canada
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
LOL! Snowman, Edmonton is often referred to as "Deadmonton" by some. To me we are just another modern big city. On the other hand, Montreal, Quebec City (both in Quebec) are architecturally historic and are on teh St. Lawrence River; Halifax and Charlottetown (both on the east coast) are also architecturally historic and they are on the Altantic Ocean; Vancouver is the most beautiful city in Canada being on the west coast (Pacific Ocean) which is beautifully mountainous and has mild winters.
Winters in Edmonton are also long and brutally cold. I don't know where you live, but it's got to be generally warmer and probably has as many great summer activities as Edmonton. Query YouTube and post videos of your location
Talking about travel videos, I was researching the German castle Neuschwannstien in Bavaria on YouTube a few months ago. Neuschwannstien is the castle that inspired the famous Disney castle. Anyway, I'd recently bought a Z scale model of it and wanted to know more about the surrounding landscape to help me decide how to construct for our large train layout. This is the video I intially found. The castle is surrounded by mountains, evergreen forest with a waterfall, and small town in the valley below. Music is by Rammstein, a hugely famous headbanger band of men who grew up in the former East Germany. While not my usual cup of tea, this band is hands down the world's best band of the genre, at least in my humble opinion.
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7/21/2009, 4:38 am
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SnowmanF
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
Can't say about Deadmonton specifically, I rather meant your whole country
I agree, Vancouver is great. My personal favorites would be to be somewhere about an hour north of victoria on the inland coast of V Island. Second great idea is somewhere in the Banff area.
Speaking of Neuschwannstien, I'm sorry to tell you I've been there, LOL. Bavaria is a lovely place I think especially with a Weihanstephan Hefe Weissbeer in hand.
If only you could survive there without speaking German I'd already be there.
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7/21/2009, 5:08 am
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gpwsbeaver
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Re: Huge Summer Storm Hits Edmonton
The storm sounds like just another day here in North Carolina. I'm under a serve thunderstorm or tornado warnings at least once every couple of weeks this time of year. Yesterday was the last one.
My house was stuck by lightning a couple years ago. I was home at the time, it scared the heeby-jeebies out of me. It fried my lap top and modem (both had to be replaced), and my stereo hasn't worked right since. So I totally feel your pain.
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The next Sylvanian Figure List comes out Saturday, January 9th! Visit http://www.sylvanian-families.net or e-mail wendy@sylvanian-families.net to sign up or get more information.
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7/21/2009, 7:13 am
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Computers going as wrong as yours did is a mojor misery