Earlier in the week we had a bad storm, but it was only the beginning of what has turned out to be a terrible week for the people in my community. The destruction caused by the high winds and hail we received on Monday was nothing compared to the tornado that came through our town on Wednesday night!
I had already put the children to bed and my husband and I were watching television. We had been watching one of the local stations and the news was tracking a large storm moving across the state. They said that there was a possibility for tornadoes again tonight and to be on alert. We were in a tornado watch for a few hours, before a large tornado hit a community about 40 minutes away. The direction of the storm indicated that it would likely come close to our town. A few minutes later our county was in a tornado warning! We gathered up the children and headed to the basement with our radio, cell phones, flashlights, blankets and some bottled water. I called my parents to make sure that they knew about the warning (they live in town). My dad said that the sirens had just gone off in town and that they were getting ready to head to the basement, also. I told him that I loved him and to be careful... and hung up. We hadn't been in the basement for more that 2 minutes and the power went out! My son started to cry. He couldn't understand what happened to the lights and he wanted to go back to his bed! I cuddled with him and we all hunkered down in the bathroom behind the stairs. As we listened to the radio, we realized that the tornado was actually headed for our town. There was no chance that we were going to miss it this time. The announcer said that they had confirmation that the tornado had entered the southwest corner of town and had hit some homes in one of the neighborhoods in that area. The close proximity of the homes of some of my friends was very frightening. Then he started to name streets... the path of the tornado was not a straight line to the north and east like for some reason I thought it would be! I heard him say the street that my parents live on and my heart sank! Immediately I picked up my cell phone to call my dad. No answer. I tried my mom's cell. No answer. Home phone. No answer. I left messages on all three. "Hi, it's me. I want to know if you are alright. Please call me back. I love you." After waiting for a minute I tried again. And again. And again. I was hoping that maybe they left their phones upstairs or something. I will just wait a while longer. I'm sure they're OK. They have to be OK. After the tornado has left town and we knew that we were safe, we headed upstairs and laid the kids back down. What am I going to do now!?! We continued to listen to the radio to make sure that there wasn't another one... The announcer continued to relay information about what parts of town, what businesses and neighborhoods, streets, etc. had been hit. I had held it together until he started to describe the destruction that the tornado had caused. While waiting to hear back from my parents, I decided I should probably call my brother and my grandparent's to let them know what was happening. I didn't want to scare them, but I thought that I had to tell them that I didn't know if Mom and Dad were OK. I have a very good friend who also has family in the area that was hit. I decided to call her, to see if she knew anything. She told me that her in-laws were alright, but their home was gone. Gone. My parents live about 100 yards from her in-laws. I start to panic. Call waiting. Was that my call waiting? Gotta go... Mom Cell. Thank the Lord! "Mom, are you OK?"
"The house.." she says.
"Mom, are you and Dad OK?"
"The trees..."
"I don't care about the house or the trees! Are you both OK?"
"Yes, we are fine."
"I will call you right back. I have to let everyone else in the family know that you are OK."
When I called her back I told her about the neighbors house. She couldn't believe it. They knew that the tornado had to be close, but they had no idea it was only 100 yards away.
It wasn't until the sun came up the next morning that you could really see what the tornado had done. The devastation was tremendous. It was said the the tornado was probably an F4 with winds up to 200 miles per hour! Over 30 homes were completely destroyed and over 100 more were severly damaged. Several businesses and an elementary school were damaged. Piles of rubble. Power lines down. Trees uprooted. Cars turned over. Broken windows. Debris everywhere. The local university was also hit... they reported over 20 million dollars in damage! There were no deaths and only minor injuries.
Whether or not your own home was damaged, or even that of someone you know, everyone in the community has been affected by the tornado. We will never be the same as we were. The debris and rubble in being cleaned up. We will rebuild our homes and businesses and plant new trees. But we will never be able to forget where we were and what happened when the tornado came to town.
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