Aggressive Storms and aggressive driving

All I can say is WOW!  Last Thursday is a day I’ll be remembering for sometime.  For a number of reasons, and moving from my home on Yates Drive is the least of them.

The Champion has a couple of articles on what happened and the confirmation that it indeed was a tornado that hit Milton last Thursday evening.  Jennifer Smith has a few pictures on her website from that day as she was even closer to the line of the storm that day.

Needless to say many Miltonians will have their “where were you when the storm hit” stories.  Here’s mine.

As I mentioned before Pat, Anthony, Miranda and I have moved from our home of the last 6 years on Yates Drive to our new home on Arthur’s way…exactly 2.7 kms away.  Thursday was our closing date and the movers were doing their thing over the course of the day getting our furniture and memories packed up on the truck.  I have to admit, it was hard leaving.

There were some hiccups with the closing, as most closings go, and we were delayed a bit in getting the second half of the delivery completed.  Thats when things got very eerily quiet.  The air went very still for about 3 minutes and I had this funny feeling something was about to happen.  Standing in my garage, I looked out towards the road and I heard a very loud rumbling sound, almost like a train.  Before I knew it the sky went very dark…almost black and then sheets of rain suddenly appeared.  There were no drops of rain to announce its arrival but it was like someone turned on a very large faucet and it came down.

Winds were blowing madly as the very young trees on our street bent over from the force of the wind and the rain.  The movers were making mad dashes to get off the moving truck and leaving all the metal objects where they were for shelter.

The movers then had to call off the move because of the weather and the potential for more lightening.  Thankfully the new owners of our house were moving in the next day and let us keep our belongings there until the morning.

I am very grateful that no one was injured in Milton but the pain of the damage will live on in many peoples minds.  As my parents always told me, you can replace belongings but you cant replace a person.

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Another thing caught my attention in the Champion was a letter to the editor from Christina Drapeau who detailed her experiences while driving in and out of Milton along Derry Road.  The reason why it caught my attention was I was witness to some very questionable driving skills from an individual going south on James Snow Parkway to Waldie.

As I was coming home in the right lane, a blue Pontiac Sunfire blew past me at a higher rate of speed.  I was doing 70km/hr and they must have been going almost 90km/hr.  This car was driving in the left lane and as we got around the bend towards the light at Waldie the car cut in front on another car in front of me, slammed on the brakes and made a very dangerous right hand turn into the subdivision at Waldie.  Thankfully there was no collision, but it does illustrate that there are some people out there who are driving to aggressively. 

A little shaken up, I continued down to Derry Road to continue towards Louis St Laurant.  I am now in the left lane for those of you who are keeping track…as the right lane ends shortly after Derry.  There was a large pickup truck in that lane waiting for the light to turn green.  The lane we are in is adjacent to the left turn lane to go east on Derry and after the light turns green the truck in front of me, instead of going straight makes a bee line left turn and almost cuts off 2 cars in the process.

So I understand what Christina is talking about when she voices her concerns on continued aggressive driving in Milton.

Do we really have to be in that much of a hurry?  Think twice.