We had something like that here about a week ago.
The sky was clear and sunny, and the power went out. I thought, "That doesn't make sense. It's a nice day." I had the radio on, and there had been no weather advisories.
Within just a few minutes, the sky was dark. It got dark faster than I've ever seen before. It started to rain and thunder, then very suddenly I heard a wind like I've never heard before. A steady, very loud hiss/whistle, very strong, very steady like a tremendous river of wind. I thought, "Is this a tornado? No sound like a freight train, must be something else."
Then a very large maple tree, probably 100 years old, in the front yard blew down, and I ran to the basement. From there, I could watch out a small window at the top of the foundation wall, but I couldn't see much.
I was afraid my mobile homes had been destroyed (I have two of them here, both sold but not delivered yet), so as soon as I saw it wasn't blowing so strongly any more, I went out into the storm to check.
No, the mobile homes were OK. As it turns out, the wind hit them end on, which they could take. If they had been hit broadside, they would have been blown off their blocks and ruined.
Later, I was at the post office, which is a tiny box of a wood building about 100 yards from here. It was a public tea house in the 1800's. In its present incarnation, it's perfectly suited as the post office for a village of 350 souls.
Renee, the postmistress, had been there during whatever it was. She said she couldn't figure out where to go. The wind was rattling the front door, so she stood there trying to hold it shut. She could see out the door's window, and saw that all the trees, even huge old trees were bowed over sideways, horizontal to the ground, the wind was so strong.
Reuben Herschberger and his sons, the Amish farmers down the road, were out in it. They ran for shelter and huddled against the leeward side of a little wooden shed, which had been the closest thing they could reach. They watched it blow down a block wall where they were renovating the old barn, and they watched it blow away a silo top they had on the ground by the barn.
Very strange weather. Not a tornado, but not typical thunderstorm gusts, either. Extremely strong wind (I would say 80 - 100 miles per hour) blowing steadily in a straight line, not swirling, for some length of time. I can't say how long. It could have been only half a minute, or it could have been several minutes. I just don't know.
After things had settled down, I looked out the front door and saw Chucky and Aaron standing in my front yard, pondering the fallen maple. (Here's a proper introduction to Chucky and Aaron:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=22637)
I have the sense that Chucky and Aaron are forces of nature themselves. The image that arose seeing them materialized there before the fallen tree was of termites. Tropical termites, maybe, that somehow sense that a tree somewhere in the jungle has fallen and swarm to it within minutes, maybe even seconds, of the catastrophe.
I knew why they were there.
We had the relevant conversation, and it was agreed that Chucky and Aaron would come the next day and saw up the fallen tree. Firewood. Later in the day, another neighbor came around and asked if he could take the tree for firewood, but I had to tell him Chucky and Aaron had asked for it first.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Glad you weren't unloading! ...