Sunday, November 18, 2007
Bracing a StormToday I was the officer in charge of a missile site. It was going to be a quiet and rather uneventful day.
I got my men to go downstairs to rest because they were not needed ontop. After doing some necessary maintainence chores, I settled in for a day of reading and sleep.
I spent the whole day on the rooftop, making myself comfortable with 2 fans, and later in the afternoon, the roof was hit by a major storm coming in from the Changi direction, I could actually see the dark clouds looming ominously in the distance as it slowly closed up, and then before long, strong gusts of wind buffeted the roof as I got into action, hastily placing sandbags to anchor the tent that threatened to blow off. It was all very exciting! Like struggling to prepare for an onslaught of a hurricane.
There was lightning flashing everywhere, all around me, and I was actually glad I was alone and the other guys were below in relative safety. It was quite exciting to be up there all alone and my excitement factor was raised as I was securing the tarp over the sandbags, a lightning bolt struck the lightning arrestor on the block right beside mine!
That was the epitome! It was a loud bang as if a GPMG went off or someone threw a thunderflash at your feet, the bang made me instinctively duck downwards from where I was! I didn't see the bolt directly, but when I looked up the arrestor had sparks arcing off it, as if it was an upside-down fireworks fired from the sky, totally awesome! Now that I think about it, I think what I did reflexively would have seem rather stupid, but haha it was exciting! A lightning bolt struck right onto the building next to me! Oh man, if that was the bang, I can't imagine what would have happened if the bolt struck the arrestor that I was standing next to instead.
Then after all that, I hunkered down in the tent, watching the mesmerizing thunderstorm in the distance and admiring all the lightning bolts flashing nearby, it was like a large psychedelic synchronized lighting display!
I didn't really think of the danger, considering I was the only one of the rooftop in a high-lightning risk environment, in fact I thought of that to be rather exciting!
Then the rain started like natures wrath and the skies took revenge on earth. Visibility went down to a hundred yards and I just sat there in the tent watching leaks form on the command tent, hearing the unrelenting wind howl outside, feeling the spray of the rain on your face, hearing rapid lightning cracks in succession nearby, the occasional crack of a nearby bolt hitting something that will make you jump, (reminds me of an ion storm from the computer game
Tiberian Sun.) and the skies opened up it's floodgates.
But as night fell, the storm moved on and went inland towards the city. And peace reigned on the rooftop again.
Hmm, it was a solemn and quiet night in the passing, just another day on another rooftop protecting our motherland's skies.
10:10 PM
