Day 31, April 12, 2009

I got up at 0545 hours this morning and it was pouring cats and dogs, so I went back to sleep. I got up again at 0745 hours and checked out the weather on my computer and on the weather channel on TV. The rain stopped in Dallas around 0830 and the weather looked pretty good (no reds or yellows on the weather channel radar) up through OK City. I was saddened when I checked my e-mail this morning to read that Houston, TX had lost two firefighters from Engine 26 in a blaze overnight. Talk about sad.

I packed up what wasn’t already packed last night and took off at 0900 hours. I saw at least three major accidents on 35E in Dallas in my first six miles on the road. Two looked like single car accidents where the driver had lost control and crashed into the center divider. Traffic was fairly light (hardly any semi’s on the road today) and I made it up to Oklahoma City by noon. I saw some big burn areas about 50 miles south of OK City. The rain was light on the way up, but once I got near OK City it started pouring again. I kept going as it was supposed to rain all day in OK City and the temperature was only 51-degrees.

The rain lightened up again after I got past OK City. There were some huge burned out areas near the OSU exit in the Stillwater, OK area. The grass was burned black as far as you could see. The burned out areas just reeked after the rain had saturated the area. It started pouring again when I got near Wichita and it was only 47 degrees there as I passed through. It kept raining and raining and raining. It was really tough in that area passing trucks when it was pouring cats & dogs, as you could barely see as you past the trucks by - kinda scary. It was also very windy in the Wichita area today. There were also some huge burned areas (miles and miles of it) on I-35 north of Wichita. I’m not sure if they were wild fires or controlled fires as I’ve seen controlled burns in this area many times before.

I finally made it up to just south of Kansas City, MO on the 435, by about 1800 hours and checked into a motel in Overland Park. It was only 44 degrees when I arrived here. There were no photos taken today! I’m running some photos that Robert Knowles and I took that haven’t been posted in the last couple of days.

It was a miserable day to drive in today, but at least I was able to get to a little over 400 miles away from home. I was disappointed the forecast was bad in both OK City and Wichita. I had wanted to stop and do some buffing in both cities on my way home. It’s supposed to be cool in Kansas City tomorrow, so I may not have much luck trying to get photos here tomorrow either. If that’s the case, I just might head directly home tomorrow morning as there’s an Extra Alarm Association meeting tomorrow night at the Firefighters Hall & Museum. I might just be able to make it to the meeting.