I hope no one got caught out doing a late-night ride. The weather was calm at 10:30 in Arlington. Then the wind and the lightning and the thunder rolled in. There was almost constant lightning for close to 45 minutes. It finally seems to be moving off.
One million people without power in the D.C. area tonight. Wind gusts were in excess of 80 mph! Portajohns were knocked over onto Independence Ave. Some customers could be without power for days.
Wow, that was one hell of a derecho. Many places saw gusts in excess of 70mph and like PC said sustained lightning for almost an hour. More than a million people without power in the middle of an already record breaking heat wave is not a good scenario.
It’s also crazy to think that the line of storms got it’s start in Illinois and bulldozed it’s way across 5 states to get to this area. As insane as yesterday was with the heat and then the storms, there’s a chance it could all happen again today/tonight so try to keep an eye on the weather forecast/radar if possible.
“…POTENTIAL WILL EXIST FOR THE EVOLUTION OF ANOTHER BOW ECHO SYSTEM CAPABLE OF POTENTIALLY WIDESPREAD DAMAGING WINDS ACROSS PARTS OF THE DELMARVA INTO CNTRL/ERN NC.”
I’m also having a lot of trouble getting a signal on my cell phone; a lot of towers must have been damaged so keep that in mind if you are heading out alone on a bike today.
Just got power back about 45 mins ago. No one in my household has a smartphone and we had no cell signal anyway. It was an interesting 24 hours, but still much easier than say, riding 200 mi… I did ride 0.5 mi to the closest hilltop in order to get a cell signal, and my 20 points.
It made a real mess of the Custis Trail when we were trying to ride it this morning around 4:30. Lots of trees down blocking the trail. We tried to carry the bikes over, under, and around the blockage, but bailed at Harrison and rode the streets to join up with Mark and Tim.
Yeah I was thinking of you guys when I saw all the debris and all the traffic lights out. Incidentally, a bike is a great way to scout around for a cell phone signal.
No problems here on Friday or Saturday, despite the bad weather. But now the cable has gone out, sometime this afternoon. The on-screen display and program info is available but every channel is dark. No Tour de France for me tonight. (I don’t like watching long programs online, except for the live broadcast of the Ironman World Championship at Kona.)
The trees looked like God gave them a pretty good lopping
Crowned heights of the oaks no longer were topping
It was easy to see
The surfeit of debris
And those who knew not dark traffic lights were for stopping
.
