The crack of thunder was ear splitting and air clearing; you could smell the electricity. Though the rain had diminished from its torrential pace, there was little doubt that this thunderstorm was directly above us. Not one second of interval between flash of lightning and thwack of thunder was detectable. How pleased I was that I’d made arrangements for our airplane to be hangared on this stormy night.
No sooner had I thought these thoughts than the lights went out in this New Hampshire cottage. Water was no longer available, as electricity was required to run the well pump. The rain picked up again, sheets of it sprayed the windows as if buckets of water had been hurled at the house. Rivers of water cascaded off the roof, but our Cheyenne was safely tucked into one of the new hangars at Lebanon, New Hampshire. We had arrived just in time. The next day we learned that a woman had been killed in a neighboring town. A tornado had removed her house from around her as she sat in her living room.
