Tag Archives: Sirens

Jun12

FOWC – Alarm

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FOWC – Alarm

For Fandango’s challenge:-

FOWC With Fandango — Alarm

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Last Thursday evening, June 5, 2025 we were very much alarmed!

Here’s what happened.

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From a local news article:

JUNE 5, 2025) At approximately 6:55pm, the National Weather Service included Lubbock, Texas in a Tornado Warning. This warning activated the Outdoor Warning System (OWS). This Tornado Warning also activated the Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS).

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They say now there were multiple tornadoes all around the area, and were getting close enough to our city to sound the alarm. I don’t think one actually hit inside the city, but the outlying areas saw some damage to trees and roofs, etc.

At home that night, we were monitoring the weather news on TV and radio. Then the tornado warning sirens went off and stayed on for it seemed forever. Normally when they test these sirens, we can barely hear them, but this night they were loud and clear, even over the sounds of the storm.

Plus, our TV was turned up about as loud as it could be done, and even then we could barely hear the announcers. The news people said they had their speakers turned up as loud as they could, too, and could hardly hear themselves, they said.

It was loud! So loud! The wind was howling, the hail was falling, and torrential rain was coming down. Sounded like a giant was stomping on our roof, while hail was being driven into our window panes. Luckily nothing got broke or damaged at our house.

During all this, my phone rang two different times with an automated alarm of a tornado warning.

I was concerned, but not all that scared. Which was strange being that I had been in the F5 tornado before and still have nightmare of it. This night I carried on with my making supper and then sat down to eat while watching weather coverage and hoping the roof wouldn’t cave in. My husband and a friend was out in the garage with the door open watching it all go on. After awhile it all calmed down as the storm finally left our area.

Since that night, we’ve had some more tornadoes around the area, but none as close as these were.

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Thanks for visiting!  Peace ☮️

© 2025 BS

Jul25

Writer’s Workshop

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Writer’s Workshop

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The link below is where you find several prompt questions and other instructions

For John’s challenge:

Writer’s Workshop Prompts for July 25, 2024

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Here are the prompts for this week’s Writer’s Workshop:

  1. Write a post based on the word alarm.
  2. Write a post in exactly 13 sentences.
  3. Write a fairy tale: start with “Once upon a time” and end with “And they lived happily ever after.”
  4. Tell us about your favorite disk jockey, past or present.
  5. Write about the first time you went to a sporting event.
  6. Tell us about an event that brought you closer to your faith.

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1. I will try to write a post in only 13 sentences, but I know it won’t be easy.

2. I probably went to my first sporting event when I was a kid, and my dad took me to a rodeo in our town. 🐎🐎🐎

3. The rodeo was going along fine until the clown came out and scared me. 🤡🤡🤡

4. He was clowning around and tossed something up into the audience, which I thought was a skunk; I still don’t know what it was, maybe just a towel? 🦨 🦨 🦨

5. The object came right toward me, so I screamed and spilled my coke and popcorn. 🍿🍿🍿

6. I’ve hated clowns ever since.

7. Now for the first suggestion – alarm.

8. Is an alarm the same as a siren?

9. We finally, after many years got a bunch of sirens to announce a tornado in our city, but honestly, if it was raining and hailing and lots of wind happening, we could not hear the sirens at all. 🌪️ 🌪️ 🌪️

10. They test the sirens every so often, and I’ve opened the back door to try to hear it on a perfectly calm and quiet day, and if I concentrate really really hard I can just faintly hear something, so what good are they … none!

11. One time (in Japan) I caught the stove on fire, and called the fire department and they came with sirens blaring. 🚒🚒🚒

12. They took care of the fire before much damage, except for the stove, but it was embarrassing when the episode was written up in the Stars and Stripes Army newspaper under local emergency calls.

13. And here it is the number 13, and the final sentence of the prompt, so I can say Woo Hoo I did it. 🙂

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Thanks for visiting! Peace ☮️

© 20204 BS

 

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Thanks for visiting! Peace

© 2024 BS

Jul27

House # 20

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House # 20

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Our years at Ft. Hood/Killeen TX were done, as the Mr. retired from the Army. We were moving back to our home town of Lubbock. We looked at houses there, but couldn’t find any we liked, or that would rent to people with pets. At the time we had 4 dogs and a rabbit.

So we went to another smaller town about 30 miles down the road – Levelland TX and found this one. It was pretty nice, a brick, 3 bedroom, kitchen, and living room one. There was a really big shed in the big back yard, too.

This first photo is of the back yard and a part of the shed. There was a covered patio, too, and you can see a couple of our dogs out there. The rabbit was kept out in the shed in his cage, and we’d get big hay bales to scatter around on the floor for the dogs to burrow down into if they wanted.

The second photo is one I got from a google search of the address of the front of the house. We were there for at least a year.

There was one thing that stands out while we were there. Right behind us was a tall pole with the emergency alert system/siren on it. They would run a test at least once a month, with announcements, and blowing the siren for several minutes. Oh my word it was loud! The dogs would be scared and howl.

We’d moved in here on Halloween of that year. haha! Actually, it felt so strange that after living so long on the mostly enclosed community of base housing at Ft. Hood, we were a bit anxious to be out in the ‘wild’ open kind of town. We did finally find our way around the small town.

And then we had to find another house in the town, because the owner of this one we were renting had sold it. So we were out. It didn’t take long though, to find another house.

That will be next time.

 

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Thanks for visiting! Peace ☮️

© 2021 BS