Just call us Command Center for Weather

On this day last week, Michigan was being bombarded with storms. Very high winds came upon us and we set records as the barometric pressure dropped. The day began with Tornado watches.

It was something else.

Sue and I had planned to get together and then wondered if we should but then reasoned her basement storm shelter was way nicer than my little dunk into Michigan basement (which are icky but can save your life and store your water heater and softener) so we continued with our plans.

I filled every bucket I could find with water in case we lost electricity, locked the dogs in the part of the house that had the least amount of tree limbs around it and prayed for safety as I battled the forty mile per hour winds to the school to drop the boys off for the day.

Upon arriving to Sue's, I took out my computer (as if I would ever leave it home where it I could not protect it!), plugged it into her office and we we went to work....

...being the weather Geeks we never claim to be.

Seriously, we had FOUR computers going! Her daughter stayed home from college classes and we had live chats from the news going and NOAH stations on and we had our emergency radio out for us to grab in an emergency.

We ran from window to window, noting the rain, the change in direction the rain would go, the swirling clouds or the moving fast clouds....

Do you notice how I know NONE of the technical terms of these weather situations?

We recorded all we seen and noticed on the live weather chats on our computers.

When we got the tornado warnings.....well, we had much to inform the public of then.

When suddenly, Jon Shaner (whom we think the world of) messaged us. "Can we call you?"

When the phone rang and Sue chatted with the director and then mentioned having the Morning Mom there and handed me the phone.

To do a weather report.

I like weather. But Sue knows all the techno terms and all that.

I do not.

I learned later that my mom had the phone in her hand to call me and tell me to watch out, Fox 17 was doing live weather so it must certainly be bad out when she heard "And now we have Denise Dykstra our Morning Mom on. Tell us, what you are seeing there?"

And my mom said I did great.

Our little area, where our "command center" was set up, ended up seeing the brunt of the monumental storm (read HERE and a recap HERE ( <--cool pics) ) at that moment. Three of my boys were huddled in a hallway at school...S2 told me he wasn't too scared, he knew S1 was on the other side of the hallway. S1 said it was boring as could be and next time he has an hour long tornado warning he's bringing a book to read. S3 thought it was fun. I credit their amazing teachers for keeping it low key...and for keeping them safe.

All in all, we never lost electricity so we had LOTS of water to dump out. (But not a one of us complained !) And I learned that I can, in fact, sorta give a weather report, which is something I never knew I could do.

Also, if caught in a storm again, there is no better place to be than at my friend Sue's house.