Stockton Lake 2009

The girls had gone to bed late (late for them 9:30 p.m.) so they were sleeping in. roger and I had woke up around 5:30 a.m. as it was thurndering> Needless to say he was pouting because he had missed the last two perfect days to fish and he wanted to go so bad. Our agreement is no fishing if it is lightening. we both showered and dresses. I was preparing a check roast we had thawed out. the plan was to put it in the crock pot and it would be ready for dinner. by now it was raining pretty hard. Around 7:30 a.m. Dustin comes flying through the camp grounds blowing his truck horn. I ask Roger what's that all about. His comment was "THAT MEANS WE HAVE TO HEAD FOR THE SHELTER !!!!!

I'm still in slow mode and casually tell the grandmas they need to get up and get dressed. They are leisurely trying to do that when Dustin comes through again. Now I begin to panic and it's just forget the clothes you are going in your pjs. shoving they shoes on, grabbing coats and literally pushing them out of the trailer into the car. )Getting a almost 90 and a 91 year old to do anything quick is a joke or in this case a nightmare. ) We are in the car Roger dropped the awning a low as it would go and we headed over to the shelter.

Now it's around 7:50 a.m. raining very hard.... waves unbelievable on a lake. 8:05 Dustin gets a call and the sheriff tells us the warning is over but there may be high winds. 70 to 75 mph for the next 1/2 hour. Within minutes the wind picks up... raining so hard you can't see the docks that are less than 150 feet from us. Boom, Bang, you hear the docks breaking loose and crashing against each other. Out goes the power. No lights no phones........... then crash... right in front of us 25 feet or so a huge tree begins to fall. Fortunately, it fell parallel with the shelter taking out three other trees. If the direction had been different it would have fallen through the door where we were standing and watching. Less than 30 minutes it was crazy, rain wind, hail.... most everyone had made it to the shelter.




Around 8:50 we emerge from our hole to access the damage. these photos were actually taken later in the day or Saturday.

It was unbelievable the amount of trees that were lost and no more damage than it was.

Several awnings were damaged as was ours but no cars, or boats were damaged other than a little hail.

The worst was on our friends just behind us. The tree came down and through their roof blocking the drive .

Truly it was God's grace and mercy how over 100 trees missed the cars, boats, trailers...........

there were folks stranded in the restaurant as it broke loose.

This is Ron and Donna's trailer. Had it not been parked here this tree would have came down on our boat and truck and possibly trailer.

The next 12 hours was lots of work trying to reset the docks... cutting up trees so you could drive through or around the park. Picking up branches, hauling logs... everyone helping each other.

To amuse the mothers and keep their minds occupied well the Hummingbirds helped in that area.

I can't tell you how many times through out the day we tired to do something that needed electric. How quickly we forget. We sliced the roast and tired cooking it on the grill. NOT Mother and I could not chew it. Oh well... we tried not to panic as we had a freezer full of food.... Roger was so frustrated that we drove to Carthage to see if they had the parts we needed for our awning.... guess what everything was closed as they were without power too. we did manage to pickup a couple of batteries at Wal-mart. With the batteries the refrigerator would run with gas.

We got back around 7 p.m. I"m putting mom to bed only to realize we don't have any oxygen. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Roger hooks up the batteries and we turn on the hot water to gas. Roger, Opal and I decide to go fishing for an hour or so. Beautiful evening.

While fishing we remember.......... why did we turn on the gas....Duh!!! we don't have any water. We caught some fish. we unload get our our equipment to clean fish and walk all the way to the dock............. duh again.......... we can't get on the dock there is no electric what are we thinking................ we felt totally brain dead by now. We just had to laugh at each other. We go back to the trailer and Roger has a knife that works with a battery... Wow what a mess...............

Our angels were watching over us as the power came back on around 11:30 p.m.