junior chief intern meteorologist

i love the weather. i gave myself the name of jcim (see above). weather.com is one of my favorite websites. i text message google for the weather. and i usually know what's happening.

friday afternoon i we heard the sirens go off. we were about fifteen minutes away from the end of the day. the news stations made it sound like it was just strong winds, but there was no tornado. daphne leaves and i follow her. if she can make it, surely i can. as i'm driving the wind picks up and it begins to hail like i've never seen it before. all i can do is pull over near a grocery store and put my blinkers on. i call the office and tell them to stay put, it was a ridiculous idea for us to drive home int his storm! so, the storm sounds like it's resting a bit...so i try to drive back to the office to park under the bridge.

i'm going down leaveworth and see water POURING from the tops of buildings and in gutters. this isn't looking good. a car passes me and makes it to a parking lot and my car stops.

stops in the middle of leavenworth river. i crack my door open to see if i can get out, no, water begins to come in the car. i sit in the passenger seat, flip through the owners manual and debate what to do. i see people at the bemis watching me. i frantically dial phone numbers. no hope. all the lines are busy. i even tried calling 911. no luck.

i roll down my window, hike up my cute old navy short dress to show off my cute leggings and crawl out of the window and put my legs in cold, dirty, hail filled water. (we saw a mattress, port-a-pottie and bowling pin go down this water/river)

i wade in mid-thigh deep water and climb to the bemis. they give me a little blanket and i just look at my car. i realize i didn't slam my door well enough. i wade back out, slam the door and shake my head. after several phone calls, i get in touch with friends and they make it to where i'm standing. mandy takes pictures...with a lot of other people. pictures will soon come.

so. yeah. my car was totally a boat. a sweet police officer pushed my car to a parking lot. and two sweet men shop-vacced it for me. my friends went to town trying to pick up tree limbs and clean my car.

we leave the car. marcia and brittany take me to bakers. i kind of check out. i get icecream and pizza bites. really. icecream and pizza bites. i just wanted sushi but they didnt have any veggie. :(.

so. i went by a house i was watching, a tree is basically resting on their roof. they will need a new roof.

there were bright spots in my day. i met a lot of my apartment neighbors. they were outside drinking beer, cleaning up and eating food. they are sweet friends. i even got someone to drive me to marcia and brittany's.

they were my roommates last night. and today. i'm totally a lemming. and marcia is letting me borrow her car. i'm not sure what i would do without them. i owe them something.

so. my car is at the dealership. it got towed. water POURED out of the exhaust. and now i'm back home to power.

note to self. just stay put at work or wherever you are. don't think you can outrun a storm.