Sorry for not posting anything for the past few weeks, but as you will soon know that was quite beyond my capability to do so. As you may have heard, there was a derecho storm that went through Iowa, where I lived happened to face the force of it. On that day I was sleeping when I heard the emergency sirens go off, in my half sleep stupor I thought it was just an emergency test of them. A few minutes later I got up and looked out the window and I could see the lamppost bending in the wind, so I knew then the storm was going to be bad.

That is when the power cut out, leaving me in the dark. So I stayed nervously in my living room for over an hour as the storm raged outside with things slamming against the walls of my home. Given the structure of my home I was incredibly nervous as it's not very sturdy, but thankfully when the storm finally passed, we only suffered minimal damage, at least compared to some of my neighbors. Our deck was moved a good several feet and will need to be replaced as well as great patches of shingles on my roof.

Still my family made it through without being harmed and for that I am thankful. Then for the next week we were without power, which provided a whole host of problems. Like the obvious all the food going bad in the fridge, and the less obvious like how do you cook food without power? For the first few day's no places were open as they were without power. We had to drive to a city to get food one day. The damage around my city is incredible and terrifying, it is like a tornado hit every part of the city. Every building has some damage from the storm, and trees were snapped.

Without power, it was hard to do anything due to the heat. Some day's it went above ninety degrees in my home. Thankfully the power was restored last week. Unfortunately the internet was still out, and would be still out until it came back today. You have no idea how hard it is to get information without either power or the internet. We have a radio that in my opinion is on it's last legs, it could get some stations, but frustratingly most of the news was about the election which is not very helpful when you want to know what is going in your city.

Now that I am back, I will post the chapter next monday unless I suffer another storm. Knowing what I do know, I would have been terrified rather then nervous in that storm. Take my advice, if you hear sirens get to shelter. Make sure you have some way to get light, and be sure to have some way to cook meals or have meals that can be eaten cold. That was the worst storm I have ever been through, and I am just thankful to be here alive and safe. Thanks for reading and I will return monday.