Long Time No Bloggy, Tornado Recap Part 1

Soooo, it's been a while and the fact always makes it hard for me to jump back into writing. When it's been a while I feel like I have to go back and catch up and that feels a bit overwhelming which is really ridiculous because this is just a blog and it's really ultimately just for me and my family anyway so why would I or do I sweat it. I LOVE that last sentence. Ha! Such a run on sentence I know, but I'm wild and crazy like that!! Caution to the wind, baby!! Ha!!

There's no way that I am going to go back and catch up, but I am hoping to hit some highlights from the past few weeks and months really. I'm going to start with the last place I left off. My last post was on Wednesday, April 27th. Little did I know when I wrote that post that it would be a historic day.

Two and a half weeks ago some of the worst tornadoes in our state's history struck really, really close to home for us. My immediate family and my extended family are all physically OK. We did have some family members who lost their home, their cars, and all their possessions. I have said a couple of times that they lost everything, but sitting here tonight I realize that's not accurate. They are alive. They have each other. They have the love and support of many people around them. They have memories. There are some things that can never be taken away from you.

Ironically, my last post was written and published only a few minutes before my family took cover in a storm shelter. It's weird to me that on the morning of Wednesday, April 27th I like thousands of other people were just going about our normal day doing normal things. Even though the weathermen had said it would be bad, no one really knew that we were only hours away from one of the worst tornado outbreaks in history.

I knew that there was a threat of really bad weather, and I was watching it closely in between keeping up with the kids, the house, school, researching curriculum, and what else...blogging of course. I published my post and then talked to Wesley on the phone. He was struggling with whether or not he should come home from work to be with me and the kiddos. The news reports were promising very bad weather. He was still kind of wishy-washy about it. I started getting some lunch together and we put up school and made some general but minimal preparations. A few minutes later, my next door neighbor came over. Y'all we really do have the.BEST.neighbors.ever!! Joe was looking for some bug spray, because he was cleaning out an underground storm shelter in our neighborhood. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I know he ask if Wesley was home. I said no and it was very clear to me that he was planning to take care of me and the kiddos right along with his family. He's just great like that. We've never been in an underground storm shelter. The excitement and adrenaline that I sensed in Joe really got my blood pumping also. The news was saying that the severe weather was getting close. I had not yet finished making our sandwiches for lunch, but I realized that I really did not have time to finish. I pushed everything back into the frig as I made another all to Wesley. I asked him what he had decided about coming home and he said that he had decided to come and that he was about to turn into our neighborhood. Everything seemed to suddenly get very crazy. Wesley drove up and immediately ran to help Joe in the storm shelter. I was throwing stuff in a bag that we would need if we were in there for a while or worse if we came out to nothing. Joe's wife and I were on the phone a couple of times. Then in a flash we were all running across the neighborhood to the shelter. The storm shelter is in the yard of a vacant house, but we had permission to use it. When I caught up to Kristina (Joe's wife) she said "4 minutes", the storm was suppose to be 4 minutes away. WOW! I had been keeping up, but in the last few minutes of frenzy it had gotten a little too close for comfort. We were only in the shelter for a little while, and then the radio announced an all clear for our area. We all came out and headed back to our houses.

At that time I was not for sure if that was the last of it or not. It turned out that it wasn't the end, but for our neighborhood it did end up being the worse of it. There were many downed trees in our neighborhood, but that was all. We had a couple of big trees laying across our back yard. When I saw them I felt sad. I would later feel very grateful that all we lost we a couple of trees. We did end up back in the storm shelter that afternoon for quite a long time. The next time we went, I was much more prepared and we all gave ourself a lot more notice. By the time we needed to go back, many others were home from work and/or school and we had quite a big crowd huddled together in the storm shelter. Although the second set of storms were not very bad for us, they were the really bad ones for the rest of our state. R-E-A-L-L-Y BAD!! All that we loss as a result of the second set of storms was our electricity. I remember laying in the dark Wednesday night. It was extremely dark and quiet and calm and peaceful but in a eerie strange way. I was listening to the radio hearing terrible reports and trying to grasp how bad things were for others, trying to wrap my head and my heart around it all, and trying to decide what we should do next. Ultimately we learned that we were going to be without power for several days. It was reported that we could eventually lose water too if the generators that pumped the water were to run out. I was trying to decide if we could rough it without power and water. I imagined Wesley going out to help others and me being overwhelmed with the kiddos while trying to rough it. Then I feel asleep...

TO BE CONTINUED