This is
mostly an update to my previous post about Friday night’s house fire. We had an out of the blue wind storm (out of
the blue because everyone I have spoken with knew we were having chances of
storms that night, but no one expected the devastating 70-75mph winds). I read in today’s paper (we did not get Saturday’s
paper due to the storm knocking out
power at the newspapers’ printing building in Fredericksburg), that the house I
saw burn to the ground was actually one
of two houses that completely burned in Lake Anna. The firefighter that was trapped under the
porch is still hospitalized with severe shoulder burns. I also read that a firefighter was injured at
the other home that was burned down (the two homes were six miles from each
other). The fire that I watched on
Friday night was thought to have been put out by the homeowner (the lightning
actually came down inside the kitchen wall, and the owner extinguished it). The owners then left the house to drive to
the fire station to ask that the firefighters take a look at the house to make
sure it was still safe (they couldn’t get through on the phones). While they were driving away from their
house, neighbors were reporting that the house was on fire. (So basically they left the house thinking
there might still be a problem, and in fact, there was still a whole lot of
fire inside the walls).
P is for
Point. I will try to get to
it. Lake Anna is one of the largest
freshwater inland lakes in Virginia (second largest to Smith Mountain
Lake). It covers an area of 13,000
acres. It is 17 miles long and has 200 miles
of shoreline. It is 70 miles south of
Washington, DC and is in three counties (Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange). Every year, the residents surrounding Lake
Anna are granted a wonderful fireworks
display. This year the event was to take
place the night after the “fiery” storm.
This storm left three million people without power and thirteen people
died (and it wasn’t even a hurricane!). Seven
hundred fifty thousand people are still without power in Virginia, DC and
Maryland, and it is still 100 plus degrees outside. There was a rain date scheduled for next
weekend. There was another storm that
came through at Lake Anna (close to where the fireworks were being shot off) about two
hours prior to the event. More hard
rains, thunder, lightning and even hail (this happened at the time the event
was to start—9:15) materialized. I knew for sure that the firework event would
not happen. The weather was all wrong,
but most importantly, the timing was just off.
Many, many residents had to clean up a mess from the storm. Some didn’t have power at their permanent
residences, and two homes were completely destroyed.
 |
| A houseboat on Lake Anna |
 |
| Many sailboats and parasails out there that day. |
P is for
Pyrotechnics. It just didn’t seem
right to have pyrotechnics when so much was going on within the seventy miles
surrounding the event. Perhaps it was
too costly to postpone? Perhaps the
powers that be felt the people of Lake Anna needed a festive event. They thought they needed a second night of
brilliance in the sky. Perhaps Lake Anna
residents needed beautiful colors, smoke and loud noise the night right after
we had just seen raging, violent, stormy skies.
P is for
Perplexed. (I had seen enough
stormy weather and didn’t care to hear more booming noises).
And now
that it is the end of July 1, I will Put an End to the P’s.
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