the tornado

On Friday evening we were busy getting ready for dinner when it started to get dark and rain. No one thought too much of it, so we continued on with normal activity. I was strapping Jason in his booster seat and my dad was carving the potroast when I realized how windy it had gotten. Just as I was staring outside I realized it didn't look too normal and then the power went. The wind was howling, trees were bending in the wind and the rain was coming in sideways. I quickly suggested we move the family back into the interior of the house (we were in the eating area which is surrounded by windows). We heard a few pops, which we assumed were maybe transformers. Only maybe a minute later it was over. It was still raining, but it was like a normal heavy rain.

At this point my dad went outside with a flashlight, apparently joined by many other men. He was gone for a bit and I was anxiously trying to feed the boys by flashlight and pretend nothign was wrong. I'm not sure how it all played out, but we eventually realized that it had been a pretty bad storm and many trees were down. When the rain slowed and the danger had passed we all went outside. We were shocked with the devastation we saw.

I called my brother, on the other side of the town on the lake. He said there were literally waves coming across the lake. All of the floats, which were ready for the annual canoe carnival that next evening, were strewn up and down the lake and beach. We later found out that it had been a tornado.

Before I show the pictures, I just wanted to mention how amazed I was with how the town came together. Within minutes my dad was up on a neighbor's roof, along with others, helping to cut down enough debris in order to tarp the roof to minimize future water damage. A total stranger came by with a chainsaw and cut down enough of a tree so that emergency vehicles could come through. Those with power offered food, water and whatever else they could offer (we took advantage of a neighbor's electricity and charged our cell phones). The town really came together, and it was a beautiful thing to see.

On with the pictures.

This is my parent's driveway and vehicles. The tree narrowly missed crushing the white minivan. It did dent the blue car and pulled off the tailight. My car was thankfully parked in front of the house and not in the driveway.

This is our street. Obviously unable to be driven on.

This would be the other way we'd get out to the main road. Equally impassible.

After taking a detour, we found our way towards the beach, strewn with emergency vehicles.

This is the playground at the beach where we normally play.
Here is our neighbor's house. This damaged the edge of their roof and gutters. They also had another tree down on the side of their house, damaging their roof, as well as a tree through the roof of their shed.

Another neighbor's house. I didn't even realize, until the next day, that there was a car under there. A brand new BMW, but as the owner said, a few feet in the other direction and it would have crushed his childrens' bedrooms.

After the storm the sky had lightened again, but a very eerie, almost yellow-like color, but it was followed by a beautiful sunset.

Yet another neighbor's home, with the tree fully uprooted.

News choppers in the sky.

The evening provided some challenges. Obviously we couldn't see anything, so we lit candles and used our flashlights. Tyler went to bed without issue, but woke repeatedly because "it's too dark for me to see to sleep"...whatever that means. My mom ended up sleeping with him part of the night. Jason did as usual, waking twice before coming in bed with me in the early hours. It was hot, but not unbearable.

Saturday morning brought some continued boredom and yet more heat. We walked around the neighborhood some more, still in shock over the devestation we witnessed. Later on we did some clean-up. Excuse the quality of the remainder of my pictures. They were taken with the iPhone, as my camera batteries had been used to power Jason's white noise maker necessary to drown out the noise of the chainsaws and power crews throughout the night.

After that we went to check in on my grandparents. They were also without power, but have much more natural light in their house, so the boys played a little, including Jason's first musical creation.

Shortly after we got home we were back outside, yet again, talking with neighbors and watching trees being cut down, splashing in puddles, etc. Right as we were coming in to decide what to do for dinner an American Red Cross truck went by, delivering water and food. Tyler and I have a routine of discussing "people helping people" each night before bed, in which we talk about ways we've seen people being charitable/helpful/nice that day. I decided it would be a good thing for Tyler to witness the truck doing it's thing, so I brought him outside. The worker saw that i had a child and immediately came to hand out a stuffed animal, which happened to be a Mickey Mouse. You should have seen the smile on Tyler's face! They also gave me one for Jason. You can bet I'll be donating to the American Red Cross the next time I'm given the opportunity!.

We ended up going to a diner for dinner, to take advantage of the warm food and air conditioning. When we got home we decided to walk down to the local ice cream place, The Sand Stand. Jason was quite tired at this point, and we were all hot, so I wasn't surprised that he was cranky. It took me a while to realize he was begging for our food. I decided to break all my rules (after all, it was his first tornado) and allow him to have a taste of my whipped cream. Boy was he a happy little boy!

As we walked back home we were happy to see the large tree blocking our driveway being removed. Too bad they thought that our driveway would be a good place to put all the debris!

We had been lent some battery-operated lanterns from a neighbor, so Tyler went to bed without too much trouble. Jason went down easily as well. Just as I was sitting in the living room contemplating how I was going to sleep in the extreme heat I was elated to see the power crew stop in front of our house. At around 10pm (approximately 30 hours after it all began) we had power back. Woohoo. Water, TV, lights, air, internet. I was a happy camper!