Can we ever have an NSS Convention without some type of dramatic weather? Not often, I don't think. Betty and I were at the NSS Awards Banquet last night, which started off bad, since the air conditioning was not working. So, nearly 1,000 sweaty bodies were crammed in a building at the West Virginia State Fairgrounds.
But, what the heck, we were having fun, anyway. Then, all the power went out. The speakers were reading by flashlight and trying to YELL loud enough for everyone to hear them. After a while, I told my wife Betty, that I thought we might as well just head back to the motel.
We go out to the car and pull out onto the one-way street and whosh.............the straight line winds hit. BIG trees are going down all over the place. We were very lucky not to get hit by one. It took us over 2 hours to get back the 4 miles to the motel. And, we were lucky to get back at all, so many roads were blocked. The entire town of Lewisburg was without power, so we used our flashlights and went up the stairs to our room. Of course, the window was not designed to open, so it was a rather stuffy room last night.
We got up this morning at 5:30 (better known as The Crack of Dawn) to learn that the entire State of West Virginia was without electricity. The closest gas stations (with electriciy) were 100 miles in one direction (east) and 150 miles in another. We had half a tank of gas, so we took off back to Tennessee. Somewhere in Virginia on I-81, as we got precariously low on gas, we finally found a gas station with it's light on and it's pumps working. Hooray !!!
Quite an exciting end to what was a very enjoyable NSS Convention. Hope nobody got hurt at the Campground. There were lots of big trees there.
Larry E. Matthews
NSS #6792-F