Kids' Comics: this blog "is an online publication of RAW Junior, LLC, publisher of the Little Lit Library and TOON Books. The blog is maintained by Bill Kartalopoulos with contributions from TOON Books artists and authors." Source: Anastasia Suen's blog.Attention Austin Event Planners: famed fantasy author Franny Billingsley has a particular interest in visiting the Texas Hill Country! Drop her an invite! Check out her newest release, Big Bad Bunny, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Atheneum, 2008). Read a Cynsations interview with Franny.
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On a more dramatic note, Austin is still cleaning up from Thursday's early morning storm.It hit the center of town between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. with four-inch hail and winds clocked as high as 47 miles per hour.
Trees still block many neighborhood streets (including mine, headed north), three elementary schools were closed yesterday, and up to 40,000 people lost power. More than 3,000 are still without. Here's the latest from the Statesman.
We were lucky, losing only a medium branch and one west-facing second-floor window. West-side windows were hit (and broken) hard across town; at least one east-side apartment complex lost all of theirs. The problem was that the large hail was flying fast and horizontally toward them. If your angle was right, it looked like a blizzard.
I was on the second floor at the time, rushing to unplug my laptop and grab my flash drive (priorities?) when hail broke the window behind me. We never lost power, though our cable service was out until about 4 p.m. yesterday.The kitties weathered the storm in their cat carriers in the first floor central hallway, except for Mercury, who was temporarily in hiding and then decided that clinging--claws out--to my shoulders was the only way to go.
Of course many other cities have been hit much worse by spring storms. It appears that none of our funnel clouds actually touched to cause tornado-level damage. From the reports, it appears that our damage was to property--not people. There was time enough to secure animals, etc.
Still, quite a night. See Greg's report and Don Tate's.
