A Microburst Away from a Tornado

That morning I woke up at 6 and started getting ready for work.  The night before we were told that it was going to be our first humid muggy day around 80.  Later on that day we were suppose to have a thunderstorm roll in about the time everyone was heading home from work.  I hoped that it waited until we got home so we could watch it.  I wore capris and flip flops.  Since it was my second to last day in the mailroom, Britney and I decided we wanted ice cream sundaes.  So we all brought the goods in.  I brought sprinkles. 

Since it was a Thursday, we also had one of our bi-monthy staff meetings scheduled for the day.  Those began at 9.  That was our first work interruption and we all always welcomed it.  We talked about a few things and the first topic was about me leaving to go upstairs to Retro.  Trina said that it was great having me work down there since I was one of her first hires as the manager down there.  She said I transitioned quickly and that she would miss me.  I added to that.  I told everyone I would miss being in the mailroom, it was fun getting to know everyone and that I was looking forward to the opportunity in Retro.  They all knew it was a non-perm which meant the possibility of returning to the mailroom granted I didn't find another opportunity elsewhere before my time was up next May.  I also mentioned that I would not be a stranger.  I was hoping they would still invite me to stuff over the course of the year but that would be up to them.  We wrapped it up with Trina telling them that they weren't going to hire a non-perm for my position until it was absolutely necessary.  The next few weeks to months were going to be hard for them especially on the mail heavy days.

Most of the mail was done by the time I got back from lunch so I went from lunch to my one-on-one with Trina so I wasn't worried if it went beyond a half hour which I expected it to.  All of my one-on-ones have gone over a half hour.  However, this one was kind of a "close out" one-on-one.  We went outside because it was a nice day and sat at one of the picnic tables on the west side of the building.  It started with my stats, which were the best in the mailroom at that point.  I really got offended when I heard that people were saying I was slow back in January.  They failed to realize I had not done Front Counter before so of course I was going to be slow with something I had not done before.  I wanted to be better than any of them and so I proved it.  Trina was actually proud to say that I was the fastest in the mailroom and my other stats were either 100% or within the 30 minute time limit.  She actually gave me a high five.  We talked about the Allison scenario and about my permanent spot after my non-perm stint.  She really believes that I will not be back in the mailroom after Retro.  Finally we talked about suggestions and improvements she could make in the mailroom when hiring and training a new person since I was the newest hire.

Just before we were done you could see the storm clouds moving in.  We still had a few hours before they actually reached us.  We both walked back into the mailroom and had an ice cream sundae before my mail run.  We noticed we were also sunburned and we weren't out there that long.

For the rest of the afternoon, we finished Express, the warrant run and just hang out.  I started packing up my desk so it wasn't over whelming the next day.  I can't believe I had that much stuff in my cubicle. 

At 4, we left.  I started reflecting on all that I've gone through in the mailroom and that I only had to do this (hopefully) one more time.  It was changing really fast and at that point I didn't really know what to think of it yet.  We got in the Escape because it was my turn to drive that week and noticed that it cooled significantly since my one-on-one that afternoon.  More clouds rolled in and you could tell rain was on its way.  We stopped at the light near Rich Road and noticed the clouds in the distance...I've never seen teal clouds before.  I had Suzanne roll down the window so I could take a picture of them.  I said that they were about a half hour away.

We got home around 4:30 and got into more comfortable clothes.  I tend to get home and get into sweats or shorts as soon as I could.  Ben was home working on homework and Suzanne was getting ready to head into Roy to take care of a few things.  As soon as she left, Ben and I headed outside to watch the thunderstorm because we thought it was going to be a normal thunderstorm...you know the thunder and lightening.  Nope!  It was much more than that.  I took a ten minute video of something no one in Thurston County has seen before, ever.

The video starts off pretty calm and you could see some lightening strikes and some thunder off in the distance...pretty typical.  Then the wind started to pick up and the clouds were a more sickly green teal color looking to the west.  I mentioned that if we were in the Midwest right now we would be seeking shelter in our tornado cellar.  To the south of us, which was over the roof of our house into the back yard, the clouds were a grayish white and they were coming in very low and fast.  I have never seen clouds do that before.  I was getting a little scared because I didn't know what they were going to do.  I have seen a lot of tornado and hurricane documentaries and this was looking like what happens when a tornado hits.  However, there wasn't enough rotation to make it a tornado but you could hear the swirl in the wind as this thing in the sky was approaching.  The wind came hard, fast and quick.  Then the rain came down as hard as a waterfall.  The trees whipped through the air very hard almost to the point where they could snap.  I worried about the Douglas Fir tree in our side yard because if it gave up it would end up in our kitchen.  The giant Birch tree in our front yard was being pushed as far as it could go without falling into the street.  I secretly rooted for the wind to destroy that tree because I hated it.  The lightening got closer and at one point scared us into the house.  We found out our power had gone off which was probably the same time the neighbors smaller red trees in their front yard fell over into our driveway.  We didn't notice until the storm had passed.  The wind kept blowing for another five minutes or so very hard.  The rain kept coming down.  Between the wind and the rain the street looked like Hurricane Katrina ripping through.  At about the 10 minute mark I shut it off because it looked like a normal rain storm.

Microburst Home Video

I yelled out, "I think we just had a tornado!"

We went back inside and tried to remember what all was on before the power went off.  I go back outside and call mom and noticed our neighbors small trees had fallen over. 

They all heard what happened in Lacey and she asked if we were okay.  I told her my story then she told me that dad was stuck on Yelm Highway because the trees and power poles came down.  I was like what!?  I texted dad to take pictures of where he was. I got this:

I was horrified!  What in the world happened on Yelm Highway?  Dad told me his story a few days later.  He said he turned off of Wiggins onto Yelm Highway and he said it got really windy and rainy and all he could see outside of his car was a white swirl of wind, rain and debris.  He could not see anything in front of him until the car in front of him stopped to avoid the power poles that came crashing down.  He said any sooner or later and he would have been hit by one.  He was pretty freaked out.  They all were instructed to stay in their vehicles until it was safe to do so.  He sat there a long time.  King 5 was on the scene and showed a clip of dad's car just sitting there with 10 other cars waiting. 

He also told us he had to pee really bad.  I called mom for updates and he got home around 9 p.m. He had to drive through Tumwater.  I heard Rich road got hit hard as well as the Indian Summer Golf Course and a small part of Yelm Highway.  They were closed until further notice.

Then I started watching the news and people's Facebook posts.  The whole situation was bizarre.  No one here as ever seen anything like this before.  I mean, we've had wind storms and no power for a few days to a week, trees fall and whatnot but what ever happened along this stretch of a few miles seemed like a tornado.  I waited to hear what the verdict was.  In the meantime, I saw some really weird pictures like this family who lived off of Rich Road.  Their wooden fence was torn out of the ground whole and thrown into a tree still intact.  I was in awe when I saw that.  I also heard that the top speed of the wind that we got was around 85 m.p.h. and what made it really destructive was the constant wind at that speed into highly treed areas.  We've had so much rain the past few months that the ground was saturated with water making the water table really high.  Therefore making the trees an easy push over. 

After dinner, Suzanne brought us KFC because our power was out, we thought we would get in the Escape and drive out towards the destruction zone.  We were curious on how many trees fell down, how many cars and houses got crushed.  Plus, I wanted my phone charged more than 40% before I went to bed since it also my alarm clock.  We saw lots of trees down and not just the little ones.  Massive Douglas Fir trees were snapped in half, some looked like they exploded and others fell down with their roots showing.  It looked like a tree massacre.  There were a few areas of deep standing water, branches, signs and pieces of random debris everywhere.  The City of Lacey will have a lot to clean up in the next few days.  Our power came back on around 2:30 a.m.  It was out for about 9 hours.

I made it a mission to find out what the heck it was that hit us so hard and fast.  I did find out that it was a microburst instead of a tornado.  I had never heard of a microburst before so of course I looked it up to find out more about it.  It is basically opposite of a tornado.  A tornado is an updraft or a closed low pressure circulation, leaving a path of destruction behind.  A microburst a sudden, powerful, localized air current, especially a downdraft that leaves about 2.5-3 miles of wind sheer destruction behind.

This was one epic storm.  Microbursts more often happen in the southwest and southeast and sometimes in the west.  As far as I know, this area has never seen one before. 

There were several thousand people without power and as the storm made its way north it lost its intensity.  A lot of people said that all they got was thunder, lightening, wind and rain.  No one saw anything like we did down here.  I secretly was hoping it was a tornado just because I wanted to be a storm chaser when I was 12 and thought tornadoes were fascinating.  I knew living here in the Pacific Northwest I would probably never see one but I've been close with the one in Battleground two years ago, the one in Frederickson about four years ago and the waterspout near the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge back in 2014.  One of these days I will probably be in the wrong place at the wrong time to see one...I just hope I have a safe place to hide!

Next Adventure:  Non-Perm in Retro