Fire in Town

We had a big storm system come through last night that toppled a tree on the community center and started a fire. The office is gutted, the windows blew out just as the firemen arrived...

I decided the ink and watercolor alone didn't capture the effect of the soot left by the smoke pouring out the window...I added black colored pencil and THAT is more like it.

I was on the parks board for many years, President for part of that time, and had a lot of  memories of this place--I had to go sit on the street and sketch it.

This is the office...all the records have to have been lost unless they're also online somewhere...

This is the amazing storm cloud that caused all the damage...behind these Thomas Hart Benton clouds was a huge, dark cup that clamped down on the region, scattering debris, raising dust in clouds, raining down leaves and branches and trees before it spit out a bit of rain.  The nightjar in the sketch above just body-surfed the wind...

We watched for a moment outside the restaurant and then ran for home.  Looking toward the east, we couldn't tell if it were raining tan, or raising a dust storm amongst the debris, and that's just what it was...the alley looked as if IT were on fire with the plume of limestone dust.  

A restaurant in the next town had flames shooting from the roof, and trees were down all over, along with a LOT of leaves and branches.

And only a half inch of rain, if that...

Hero bent-nib calligraphy pen and watercolor.