A Twister? A Twister?

This tree snapped and fell on the wall

So, there was a pretty bad storm that swarmed through my area last Thursday. Since Time Warner's crappy equipment broke and I have to wait unti Sunday for them to come, I was sitting in the kosher Subway working on some math and listening to music on YouTube. I heard a huge thunder snap and the winds starting raging. I turned to one of the guys working, "uh, maybe you should close the door," as he was actually said, "I'm going to close the door. It had been propped open. The door didn't stay closed. He was holding it closed as he told his co-worker, get the keys so we can lock it. The other guy said, "but what if someone wants to come inside?" I said, "people better already be inside by now, or they'll be in trouble." You couldn't see out the windows. The water was coming down against the windows blurring anything you would have been able to see. There was a third guy who was just getting off his shift, "I was going to jog home. I can't jog home in this. Should I spend $2.25 on the bus or wait it out?" The guys were like, "I don't know, what if it doesn't die down? It's pretty intense."

As it cleared, we could immediately see a tree down on the sidewalk. I went over to my netbook and facebooked that there was a storm brewing outside. I confess here that it was pretty much over by the time I pried myself away from looking at the storm. I tried to get back to my math. A woman came in to use the phone to call hatzoloah for someone. Her cell phone wasn't working. I guess some carriers were being so heavily used the signal was jamming (not my carrier, though). My friend called me to ask something about her math that she was working on. She is taking the same class, but has a different professor. I told her we just had a huge rainstorm here in Queens. I looked at my watch. It was ten to six.

The owner of the Glatt Kosher Subway Liron Shamsiav came in, "I saw it! I saw the twister!" He put on his Chaverim jacket and headed out. "I have to go find people to help!" He and some of the other Chaverim guys came through a couple more times before I left. He made sure to tease me, "Michal, you can't get home, you have to sleep in the Subway tonight!" I said, "I'm about to leave." He said, "the buses aren't running."

I went to someone's house for a little bit. The buses still weren't running when I left. I had to walk home, but went about half way with some others who were also stuck with the buses not running. It took me roughly forty-five minutes. I left just after 10pm. A friend called me at 10:27pm and I was almost home. I was stopping in a shul to use their bathroom, so relieved that something was going on inside, so that I could find a bathroom. Did I mention medium and large drinks at Subway have free refills at Subway? There's only one kosher subway left in New York City.

My street wasn't touched, by the way. I took these pictures yesterday. There is a tree that landed on a car Jewell which I saw when I was on the bus and I heard about more, including there's a video on YouTube video where they went out driving to find some damage worth filming. I was just too lazy and pressed for time to take pictures other than what I saw walking down Main street for a couple blocks.