Power out in our McLean neighborhood. Maybe the wind?

Dang, I should’ve been on here complaining last week when you guys had all that tree damage and long-lasting power outages, whining that I had to listen to the warnings when I didn’t get affected after all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A problem is that now everything now is THE WORST EVER. News media/Weather Channel hypes everything wall to wall, and if everything is the worst, than nothing is, and they won't be taken seriously.

This. Its crying wolf.

Uh, no. The storm delivered as forecast. Big wind, damage, massive hail for the mid-Atlantic. We were just very fortunate in the immediate DC and burbs to have it split around us. Carroll Co MD still has 23% of customers with no power.

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/yesterday.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A problem is that now everything now is THE WORST EVER. News media/Weather Channel hypes everything wall to wall, and if everything is the worst, than nothing is, and they won't be taken seriously.

This. Its crying wolf.

You guys are probably new to the area, or have never seen or experienced a severe storm damage before. When you've seen it, you hope for the best, are grateful that it "wasn't that bad" and have no complaints.

Wrong.

+1. Been here 16 years. Glad we didn't lose power. But whether or not they warned us wouldn't have changed whether we lost power or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with the tornado watch? That means one was spotted. Anyone see something?

No.

Watch does not mean a tornado was spotted.

Watch means you might end up with rotation in the storm clouds.

warning means that rotation has been spotted or that a tornado is forming.

DP and I used to get these mixed up too. I now think of a watch and “watch out” there could be a tornado. Warning is like an actual warning to get inside to the basement.

The one with “R” means to run (warning). That’s the more serious one.

Oh, thank you so much for this! I always get them confused, even knowing the "watch out" and "warning to get inside" trick. WaRning "R" for "run" might stick in my sieve of a mind.

I just know that watch is the less serious one because we have those all the dang time and nothing ever happens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Again, you're a moron.

Oh, did you have a crazy storm at 3pm? 4 pm? 5pm? I think we all know who the morons are. Did you make this call for OPM or something? I hope you get fired.

NP. If they'd closed government offices at 3 p.m. because a crazy storm was expected at 3 p.m., THEN I'd be expecting to see someone fired for it. The whole point of closing before you think the storm is going to hit is so people have ample time to commute home.

As for everyone who's outraged that preparations were taken that, in retrospect, did not turn out to be needed for most of the area, that seems like a win? Definitely better than the reverse. Feel free to stay at your office until exactly when the weather it supposed to get bad the next time the National Weather Service says conditions are ripe for a tornado; was anyone actually FORCED to go home today instead of staying at the office working?

My DH, who is a contractor and works in a fed office, was FORCED to go home. He had planned to stay at work and wait out the storm. A senior government manager walked around the room and told everyone to leave. Because he's a contractor, he had to take PTO since he didn't work his 8 hours.

That's pretty silly, then — bad policy on OPM's part and on the part of the contractor. People should be permitted to stay in offices when they close early, and definitely no one should be required to take mandatory PTO when weather forces closures. The employer should just eat those hours; maybe next time they bid on a contract, they should increase the bid a bit to cover similar possible incidents.

That’s generally how it works with contractors- you get paid by the hour worked. If you don’t work, you take leave or make up the time later.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with the tornado watch? That means one was spotted. Anyone see something?

No.

Watch does not mean a tornado was spotted.

Watch means you might end up with rotation in the storm clouds.

warning means that rotation has been spotted or that a tornado is forming.

DP and I used to get these mixed up too. I now think of a watch and “watch out” there could be a tornado. Warning is like an actual warning to get inside to the basement.

The one with “R” means to run (warning). That’s the more serious one.

Oh, thank you so much for this! I always get them confused, even knowing the "watch out" and "warning to get inside" trick. WaRning "R" for "run" might stick in my sieve of a mind.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not mad at the weather service for advising people to get home and use caution. I'm not mad that my kid's activities were cancelled either. Better safe than sorry.

But I can still complain that this storm stressed me out enormously and totally upended my life and then turned out to be truly nothing at all. Didn't even blow the deck chairs around a little, no downed wires in my neighborhood, nothing. I just hate that I spent all afternoon yesterday feeling so incredibly stressed trying to figure out camp pick up and re-arranging dinner plans and making sure the house was ready for a storm. I have a stress hangover this morning for no reason!

I think it's possible you reacted to the forecasts with more stress than many others did.

For me, it was minimally disruptive. I biked home from work earlier than planned, but mostly because I had to get home in time to do a Zoom meeting that otherwise would have ended late enough for the weather to mess up my commute (and I did not want to be on a six-mile bike ride through a thunderstorm of any strength, let alone a tornado). I spent 10 minutes making sure there were no loose projectiles on the lawn and taking in some stuff from outdoors. My kids' activities were not canceled, and pick-up from the day camp bus happened to be right as the rain arrived, so I drove there instead of walking. We had dinner a little later than usual, mostly because we didn't want to go to the grocery store mid-storm. I made sure our portable phone chargers were plugged in and fully charged. None of that was particularly stress-inducing.

Your situation may well have been more complex! But maybe next time, you'll remember this one, and the prospect of another storm won't be as daunting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A problem is that now everything now is THE WORST EVER. News media/Weather Channel hypes everything wall to wall, and if everything is the worst, than nothing is, and they won't be taken seriously.

This. Its crying wolf.

You guys are probably new to the area, or have never seen or experienced a severe storm damage before. When you've seen it, you hope for the best, are grateful that it "wasn't that bad" and have no complaints.

Wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A problem is that now everything now is THE WORST EVER. News media/Weather Channel hypes everything wall to wall, and if everything is the worst, than nothing is, and they won't be taken seriously.

This. Its crying wolf.

You guys are probably new to the area, or have never seen or experienced a severe storm damage before. When you've seen it, you hope for the best, are grateful that it "wasn't that bad" and have no complaints.

Anonymous wrote:A problem is that now everything now is THE WORST EVER. News media/Weather Channel hypes everything wall to wall, and if everything is the worst, than nothing is, and they won't be taken seriously.

Ok, drama queen.

When is the last time the bell was rung before a severe summer storm? More than a decade ago? I would rather the weather orgs and alerts be extra cautious. The storm 10 days ago was awful, and we had NO heads up (except general thunderstorm warnings). You do you, but I'm going to head the caution because better safe than sorry.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not mad at the weather service for advising people to get home and use caution. I'm not mad that my kid's activities were cancelled either. Better safe than sorry.

But I can still complain that this storm stressed me out enormously and totally upended my life and then turned out to be truly nothing at all. Didn't even blow the deck chairs around a little, no downed wires in my neighborhood, nothing. I just hate that I spent all afternoon yesterday feeling so incredibly stressed trying to figure out camp pick up and re-arranging dinner plans and making sure the house was ready for a storm. I have a stress hangover this morning for no reason!

Dramatic much?
I’m glad we didn’t lose power or have trees fall.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not mad at the weather service for advising people to get home and use caution. I'm not mad that my kid's activities were cancelled either. Better safe than sorry.

But I can still complain that this storm stressed me out enormously and totally upended my life and then turned out to be truly nothing at all. Didn't even blow the deck chairs around a little, no downed wires in my neighborhood, nothing. I just hate that I spent all afternoon yesterday feeling so incredibly stressed trying to figure out camp pick up and re-arranging dinner plans and making sure the house was ready for a storm. I have a stress hangover this morning for no reason!

It did NOT upend your life, get a grip. A cancer diagnosis upends your life. A bad car accident. Not a weather alert for a storm that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

Anonymous wrote:A problem is that now everything now is THE WORST EVER. News media/Weather Channel hypes everything wall to wall, and if everything is the worst, than nothing is, and they won't be taken seriously.

This. Its crying wolf.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe OPM shut down the government at 3pm for that. Well, no I can believe it.

Again, you're a moron.

Oh, did you have a crazy storm at 3pm? 4 pm? 5pm? I think we all know who the morons are. Did you make this call for OPM or something? I hope you get fired.

NP. If they'd closed government offices at 3 p.m. because a crazy storm was expected at 3 p.m., THEN I'd be expecting to see someone fired for it. The whole point of closing before you think the storm is going to hit is so people have ample time to commute home.

As for everyone who's outraged that preparations were taken that, in retrospect, did not turn out to be needed for most of the area, that seems like a win? Definitely better than the reverse. Feel free to stay at your office until exactly when the weather it supposed to get bad the next time the National Weather Service says conditions are ripe for a tornado; was anyone actually FORCED to go home today instead of staying at the office working?

My DH, who is a contractor and works in a fed office, was FORCED to go home. He had planned to stay at work and wait out the storm. A senior government manager walked around the room and told everyone to leave. Because he's a contractor, he had to take PTO since he didn't work his 8 hours.

That's pretty silly, then — bad policy on OPM's part and on the part of the contractor. People should be permitted to stay in offices when they close early, and definitely no one should be required to take mandatory PTO when weather forces closures. The employer should just eat those hours; maybe next time they bid on a contract, they should increase the bid a bit to cover similar possible incidents.