Two years ago today I woke up before my alarm clock from bright lightning bleeding through my shades and the sounds of really loud thunder. Since I was awake I decided to pull open my blinds, sit on the floor of my living room and watch Mother Nature’s show before I had to get ready for work.
Then Mother Nature made a loud boom and rumbling sounds that I had never heard before which kind of freaked me out and so I did what any other sane grown man would do – I ran back to bed and threw the covers over my head “to keep away the boogeyman.”
That boom and rumbling sound was most likely the F2 tornado that skipped through my neighborhood.
While the neighborhood was spared the complete and utter destruction that Greensburg, KS experienced, there was still some damage scattered throughout a long stretch of Bay Ridge.
With it being two years to the date later, I figured it best to give an update.
As you can see from the shot below, the row of houses on 69th Street where the most concentrated residential damage took place are now all fixed.
And if you take a closer look throughout the neighborhood you can still see some of the damage caused by the tornado.
The most obvious signs are the trees down on Shore Road that have missing canopies and limbs which were ripped off from the wind.
The Narrows Botanical Garden has a new tree planted in the spot were another was torn up out of the ground, and there is also that brown circle to the left where another tree and the plants surrounding it were torn away.
There is also a spot in the fence along the Shore Road Promenade that still shows the damage and hasn’t been touched since the day of the storm.
About 50 feet of fence is still missing. I can’t imagine how much it would cost to fix such a relatively small section of fencing and the damaged benches, but the City and the Parks Department haven’t done anything but fence off the area.
I guess this is a sign that much like New Orleans, a storm can destroy a city, but it can’t destroy red tape and bureaucracy.