Well, we survived, but it’s been a challenging time following last Thursday’s derecho and F1 tornados in Houston.  Meteorologists generally agree the storm was “just” a derecho (strong straight line wind/rain storm), but they’ve also concluded we had several F1 tornados in the area.  Recorded wind speeds in excess of 100mph across town.

We lost power for 3 days.  Some are still without power, like my daughter.  Our daughter and 3 granddaughters have been staying with us since power got restored here.  My time has been consumed with dealing with destroyed privacy fencing and tree limb debris.  We got a bit lucky - I few homes on our street had parts of roof and siding pealed off.

We’re bouncing back, but tinkering with bikes and riding are off the menu for now.  I’m going through withdrawal, but glad to be alive!  Today we dig fence post holes - yay, joy!  And it’s only going to be 90°-95° this afternoon.  If the storms didn’t get me, maybe I can avoid death by heat stroke!

I’ve heard Portugal is pretty nice weather year-round and not prone to many natural disasters or weather events (earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, tsunamis, hurricanes, blizzards, etc…)!

I knew about straight line winds before, but never heard the word “derecho” until 4 days ago.  Derecho is the word of the week down here!  Some people are comparing it to Hurricane Ike.  That’s a pretty fair comparison without the water storm surge and flooding.  Just up the road though, people are still trying to deal with rivers flooding from rain 2 weeks ago.