Tornado 2009

Friday, June 12, 2009 is a day I won't soon forget!

I was piddling around the house, while the kids watched a couple of DVD's we had gotten at the library that morning. My neighbor called, and said, "I can see your TV through your window, and I see you're not watching the weather. I wanted to make sure you know we have some big storms headed our way, and they've been dropping tornados." I had no idea it was even about to rain! So I checked the radar, and was amazed at the line of green and red that was headed our way. I turned off the DVD and onto the local weather, and they were showing the camera over the Mississippi River as the storm blew in. I could see it was a really strong storm!

I went to the backyard and picked up all the stray toys, and made sure the sandbox was closed. I called Chris at work, to see if he was going to try to head home a few minutes early to beat the storm. He was staying put, mostly because he didn't think the storm was going to be that big of a deal.

The kids and I gathered in the hallway, with some library books and flashlights, and I had my laptop trying to figure out how I could watch the local weather on my computer. (Anyone know how to watch streaming TV live on the computer???) Then the power went out, so I put the computer away and we sat and listened to the storm, and I tried to read books with the kids. I was texting Chris, "I am FREAKING OUT, power is out, storm is strong" or something like that. At one point it got kinda still, then started hailing and I heard some roaring and it sounded like my front door was being sucked out. I figured it was just strong winds.

A few minutes later my neighbor called and asked, "You okay???" He had watched the entire thing from his garage and said it was the most violent storm he had ever seen, and most of it seemed to be through already. I went to the windows and started assessing the damage. There were leaves everywhere, our playhouse was knocked over, the sandbox blown open, the slide knocked over, and we had lost half of one tree. I could see many of our neighbors were much worse off--huge trees down and shingles blown off. (We have a new roof so it held up well!)

Later we found out it was an F2 tornado that went right through our neighborhood. I can still hardly believe that it went right by our house while I held the three children closely in the hallway. We have two huge oak trees in our front yard, and we are so lucky we didn't have one of those land in our house. We have friends who completely lost their house, and many more who have extensive damage. I am counting my blessings today!!

Saturday morning we went out to get breakfast, since the power was still out and we had nothing we could eat. I took my camera and got some pictures out of the van window. Aaron was pretty shocked at all the damage. Chris overheard him once talking about the "big tornado", and Claire said, "Yeah, the big tomato." So funny!

We spent most of the day at Mimi and Pa's house, since they had power. It was a good day of togetherness. Chris helped the neighbors cut down a tree and drag limbs. Our neighbor got a generator, so we got to plug up our freezer and refrigerator sometime Saturday morning, which was such a blessing. We got power back Saturday evening, and were able to come home and sleep in our own beds. We were so thankful for that!




Here's a link to some really good pictures I saw on Facebook. Much better than my pictures, and you can see the damage around town.