Horrible Storms Here Sunday Night

Late Sunday evening a really severe system of storms moved through Houston. A tornado damaged a lot of property but fortunately nobody was injured.
We had just retired with both dogs as Freckles was a little nervous with all the lightening. We were reading when a bolt hit on or next to the house. The flash and simultaneous explosion set off the blaring alarm horn and knocked out Dukesmom's bedside lamp. I jumped up and managed to turn off the alarm that is incredibly loud. It was raining too hard to go look around outside so after I checked through the house we went back to bed.
The next morning I discovered that the lightening had fried the answering machine, knocked out the fan in the AC unit, and crashed the house alarm.
The surge protector worked on the computer so it was OK.
To add insult to injury our street is under construction with the far lane completed but our side dug up with temporary dirt/asphalt chunk drives installed. When I tried to back out my car sank up to the bumpers in the mud. Had to be towed out. The AAA person said I could be towed 100 miles at no cost and I told here I only needed 10 feet. Left the boys out this morning so they would not get too hot in their crates . They have the cool tile in the kitchen and we left all of the ceiling fans going. Fortunately the AC repairman will come out this afternoon and hopefully get it fixed as it is no fun living here at this time of year without AC.
Not a good weekend but just glad no one was hurt.

 

Wow! Glad everyone's ok. My parent's neighbors have a dog that looks like Freckles and she is TERRIFIED of thunderstorms. I always feel so sorry for her when there's bad weather and they're not home.

 

Coppersmom,
My old Lab Jake, in his old age, would become so terrified of storms that his teeth would audibly chatter. I had the Vet prescribe some mild tranquillizers that I would give him to calm him down. The storms never bothered him when he was younger so I guess that with his failing hearing and eyesight he just became insecure.
I do believe it's a natural survival tendency for dogs to seek sucure shelter in a storm. Probably why many dogs hide.

 

Sounds like you had quite a night!

My old dog Max used to hide in the closet whenever there were thunder storms.

Your story reminds me of an incident that happened when I was visiting my aunt. There was a terrible thunder storm outide and then all of a sudden we heard a huge crash. We thought it might have just been the thunder so we all went to bed. The next morning when we got up we saw that their neighbor's tree had fallen during the storm. The tree fell across the backyard and they were very luck because if it had fallen the other way it would have crushed their house (it was quite a monsterous tree).

 

My husband's aunt and uncle had a giant dog that would hide behind the toilet during thunderstorms.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I am glad that everyone is alright though. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
Sue