[Magdalen] Safe?

[Scott Knitter]

A rather horrible day it's been for beloved Chicago. We woke up to read
about the results of a night of looting downtown, and then a rare derecho
passed through this afternoon, wreaking havoc.

A friend, a former ELCA pastor, lives in the Loop with his husband, and
found himself outside their highrise building last night pleading with
looters not to damage the shops on the ground floor. I understand he was
interviewed on the scene by the CBS station. I'll look for that. Anyway,
his requests were to no avail, and he posted some scenes of destruction on
his FB page.

The derecho brought hurricane-force winds and tornadoes across northern
Illinois, and this was the first time many of us here can remember hearing
the tornado sirens sound for real rather than just the monthly test at 10am
on the second Tuesday of the month or something like that. When all was
over, our friend Mike had a tree piercing his car's windshield (thank God
he wasn't in the car at the time), and the Chicago police and then fire
department spent some time in our alley dealing with, I assume, a live
power line that had been pulled down by a falling tree. Some very old and
large trees were uprooted all over the city, bus-stop benches thrown into
streets, windows blown out of high-rise apartments, and power cuts. Our
power remained, thank God. I've never seen the temperature drop so fast:
86F to 71F in about 2 minutes, and the wind went from 0 to 60 mph in just
seconds. Lots of sirens all over the neighborhood.

Downtown is cut off from all traffic tonight: bridges have been lifted,
expressway exits and Lake Shore Drive closed.

Please pray for Chicago. Lord, have mercy.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 4:33 PM P. Dan Brittain <pdan.brittain at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 9:39 AM Ann Markle <ann.markle at aya.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > Thank you for all the updates.
>
>
> We're about as usual - not going anywhere we absolutely don't have to;
> working in the garden and canning. Those things are going well and we are
> both ok.
>
> Did hear from my son and daughter-in-law in Iowa (they live near Tama).
> Today's "Direcho" went over their house. She saw a funnel and headed all to
> shelter. Funnel never touched down (and no one hurt), TBTG, though they do
> have a fair amount of tree limbs and the like; both cars are blocked in.
> Jason's car was in an uncovered drive, no trees or branches except behind
> and blocking him in. Jaz's car was backed into a covered carport, limbs
> still managed to get on the front of the car; not sure about any damage.
>
>
> P. Dan Brittain
> Harrison, Arkansas
>
> Transcriptions, Arrangements and Original Compositions
> Wind Band, Brass Band, Choir, and Ensembles
>
> http//:pdanbrittain.com  Or  at Sheet Music Plus
> http://tinyurl.com/yb9fl39r
>


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA