Here’s the storm as seen from my deck, right before I scrambled outside to pull the cushions off our lawn furniture.

I had to run out into the yard to pick up some of the seats that had blown off the deck (over the railing, even) into the yard. As I came back from picking up the seats, I snapped a hand held shot of the back yard and got this rather crappy picture of the lightning that flashed before the ear-splitting thunder.

La Plata is only a couple miles south of us in Brandywine and when we get severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings, we can’t help but think of the tornado that hit La Plata in April of 2002.