Do you remember where you were ten
years ago today?
Ten years ago today, June 20th,
2007, was a date that will live in weather infamy here in Marquette.
It was ten years ago today that the great hailstorm of 2007 hit a
surprisingly small portion of the city, yet a big enough chunk to
cause over $50 million in damage, thereby single-handedly keeping
local auto body and roofing concerns in business for the next year or
so.
Now you remember where you were ten
years ago today, right?
I was actually taking one of my half
days that day, as the morning was quite beautiful and warm. Walking
to work, though, I could tell something funny was up by the way the
sky looked; I had never seen clouds that looked quite like that. And
no more than 10 minutes after I walked into the station, our
Emergency Alert System started beeping and sputtering and the skies
opened up. 10 minutes after that, I took this picture--
That’s hail that had fallen right
outside the studio, just a small example of what had hit the city.
When I walked home that night, I was amazed by the damage I
saw--trees were down, houses had been pelted, and every single car
roof I passed looked like Swiss cheese. As I got closer to my home I
feared the worse--after all, my car (yes, I had a car back then) was
just sitting in the driveway--but once I arrived in my yard I noticed
Mother Nature had been looking out for me. You see, my car was in
the driveway, but it was parked under a big tree. The leaves and
branches of the tree had absorbed the force of the hail, which meant
that anything hitting my car wasn’t going fast enough to do any
damage.
Mine, in fact, was probably one of the
few cars in this part of Marquette to have been outside during the
storm and yet escaped damage free. For that, I thank the tree. And
Mother Nature.
So that’s what happened ten years ago
today, in case you needed your memory jogged!
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