Ponds,
We must be in the same part of central Texas. We had the same storm hit our ranch Friday night. My brother, 6 year old nephew, and I watched the storm approach for over two hours. Our cabin is on a hill with a perfect view to the Northwest. Incredible lightning show! We were really excited as the massive storm approached. We really wanted some major water to fill the 20+ acre lake completed last summer. Our 3 acre tank was also 9' low and down to less than 1/3 acre. We were cheering the storm on. In fact, the night before I prayed for some of the storms that keep passing our place by, to actually hit the ranch. Becareful what you pray for!
The storm started with an absolute pounding of hail that chased us to the South porch. We watched the hail for only a few minutes when we heard the most incredible shreiking noise that chased us back into the cabin and under some very heavy bunkbeds. Well, tornados do not always sound like freight trains. In this case it was extremely high pitched. From under the bed, I saw the 26 gauge roof get ripped off our back porch. Then the whole North side of our cabin roof was ripped off. At one point, I saw our 200 lb plus propane cylinder in the air. I was beyond afraid as I was trying to hold the bunkbed down (ok, I was not thinking rational thoughts at the time). Our very stoutly constructed cabin and a grove of live oaks and old growth cedar within a 300' radius were shredded.
Once the roof was gone, then the rain began. I am guessing it was about 4 inches. It felt like more. After moving what we could to the "dry" side of the cabin, we went outside to checkout the rivers of flood water filling our tank and lake. The tank rose almost to the spillway. Incredibly, the lake only rose about 3 1/2 feet. But it doubled the surface area to about 8 to 9 acres.
It was quite a roller coaster ride. Really excited about all the pond filling water, but pretty depressed about the tornado damage.
Despite the little sleep the night before, we were at the builders mart in Lampassass Saturday morning. With significant help from family, we were able to get a new roof on by Sunday afternoon. We still have a lot of interior work to do replacing sheetrock and insulation, but we have a roof.
We are now ready for more rain. As we should get considerable runoff from any rainfall. Except, I will be praying for soft gentle rain showers now.
