Wednesday, July 20, 2011

July 20, 2011 Airport Storm


I like to go out and chase storms in hopes of getting some amazing photos of lightning. Well tonight as I heard and saw the thunder and lightning come barrelling overhead of my house, i checked the weather radar to see what we were in for. A large front was moving in fast, I grabbed my cameras and took off in the car. As i approached the highway it started to rain, which sucks for taking pictures, so i considered turning around and going the opposite direction to get the lightning as it goes by. But i figured i could beat it and zip out to my cottage to watch it cross the bay, well as i approached the airport the rain started coming down in buckets. The wind was howling and i noticed bits of debris blowing across the highway. As i tried to look around to see what had caused the debris i could just make out through the rain the metal on the roof of the airport was bent back like a tin can. As i continued on the debris got thicker and i could now see that a large chunk of the roof covering was removed. So i continued on to try for some lightning shots and on my way passed a handful of police and firetrucks, I guess the damage was greater than i could see through the rain. On my way back I stopped to look closely and take some photos. Well it turns out the about a quarter of the roof had been peeled back by gust front blowing through and was thrown about the parking lot like litter. These pieces of litter are very large.






the right side of the roof, covering is gone.








Pieces of roof covering scattered about the parking lot.


a different angle of view of the missing roof.



the buckled piece where it stopped peeling back.



debris scattered about, middle of pic is a some of the roof




oh yeah here is some lightning...