22 December 2005

And Lo, God Smote the Local WalMart!

Today, we had a rare thunderstorm. We were grocery shopping at Thrifty Foods just before 5:00 when the thunder hit and we were sure there had been an explosion outside. (Seriously, the roof shook to the extent that we cowered next to the store fixtures, expecting the roof to cave in.) We soon figured out that we had heard thunder (there was another strike soon after) and we knew the storm was right over us. It turns out what we actually heard was lightning hitting the local WalMart. HAHAHAHAHAH! Can you believe WalMart having to evacuate the store three days before Christmas? Hah!

The rain that came down was crazy-heavy -- lots of flash floods in intersections. Add to that the fact that power was knocked out across a chunk of the city and rush hour was a complete snarl. Thankfully, Hubby chose a quick and direct route home that avoided almost all the traffic.

I have one more day of work but I feel like I got my Christmas gift early this year!

2 comments:

Tim Bailey said...

That first flash and peal caused people to run screaming in actual terror in the parking lot outside the store where I work. I was laughing at them, but it turned to nervous laughter when the windows visibly deformed from the pressure wave of the thunder.

Unknown said...

Yeah, it was the weirdest thing ever. We will be telling this tale for generations. As to the glass, at least it only deformed -- a lot of people on the news were showing off shattered glass all over their lawns.