Back in March we went over a lesson on tornadoes for the first time with Cecille; then the very next day one came through the area. It was about 4:30p.m. when it swept through. We must have gotten a dozen phone calls from family warning us to hurry up and take cover. Being the stubborn woman I am I just blew it off like any storm. Then finally I decided to turn on the radio ( back then we didn't have a T.V.) and listen for myself. Sure enough it was notifying everyone in the area to take cover. So I had just gotten off the phone with my sister, then my mom, and then my grandpa Jerry. To be honest I'm not sure who all I talked to but it was alot of family and friends calling to warn us.
Well my phone was low on battery. I rushed the girls to the basement. I carried the radio down stairs and got it plugged in. I rounded up flash lights and my phone charger and so then rushed myself down to the basement along with the dog (our pet potbelly pig wouldn't cooperate so she stayed upstairs).
As soon as I made it to the basement the power went out. So here we are sitting crammed in a cubby hole under the stairwell in the basement taking cover. Everyone of the girls are screaming and crying all a mess with emotions. They were afraid their animals were in danger and just all around scared. So we sat in this cubby hole and read books to get our minds off of all the crazyness that was going on. You could hear the tornado when it came through but its almost like you block it out when it is actually happening.
I can remember going outside after about 45 minutes of hiding and seeing the sky. It was a greenish color. I can remember seeing the garbage can down across the street in the ditch and so I observed the little bit of damage we got. The rabbit hutches had been turned over and a few odds and ends were scattered in different places in the yard. At this point I didn't even know that their really was a tornado. So I had talked to my mom on the phone and told her everything was alright but before I was through talking the phone died completely.
There were gators cruising up and down the street and traffic driving up the road and then back. It was just not seeming right but I still just dismissed everything as o.k.
I hadn't really talked to Jason except to warn him of the tornado. He was supposed to leave work early that day to go to a mens conference to see Voddie Baucham preach. He was planning on leaving right about 4:00p.m. to come home and get ready to take out but instead Thankfully he had car trouble. Praise God because if he would have left when he had planned on leaving he would have been on are road at exactly the time the tornado was blowing through. Anyways I had no way of finding out if he was safe and he had no way of finding out if we were safe. It was all around scary / crazy.
I still had no idea a tornado had come through the area I knew it was a bad storm but didn't quite know it was a tornado until about 8:00 p.m. when Jason never returned home. I finally decided to get in the car and head out to see what was going on. Well I took out and I had to drive around big trees laying down in the road and when I got to the top of the hill our friends house was blown to pieces. I still didn't really register that it was caused by a tornado. I basically stopped to ask if everyone was o.k. and to see if I could borrow their cell phone...
That's when it all kicked in "Ding Ding" there really was a tornado! It was crazy!! By this time it was so dark you could barely see much. You would have to see that where we live you can't see much other than your house and the neighbors house to the left. God spared us our house through the tornado. We were one of the few and that was Hard. It was hard to see everyone elses homes destroyed and then here we were left with a home perfectly untouched.
So finally when I got to borrow the phone I called Jason to let him know we were all o.k. So he basically couldn't get to us...everything was blocked. They wouldn't let people out or in. It was Scary!! I tried my hardest getting out but the roads were blocked by debris and trees. So the weather was still kinda freaky outside we came back home and hung out up stairs which seemed like forever.
I decided it seemed almost like another tornado could come through at any moment and the girls at this point started falling asleep. I woke them up and told them we had to go back downstairs and hang out there. It was a few minutes later we heard someone banging on the door and then we heard Jason hollering for us wondering where we were. He was scared to death because before I had called him he wasn't sure if our house was one of the ones that got demolished or what. He had called my sister and my mom worried because he hadn't heard from me. Then my mom was freaked out because she heard from me but wasn't sure if the tornado had hit for sure at that point or not. It was all around Crazy!!!
Shortly after Jason made it home my mom and dad was right behind them. We packed four girls a pig and a box of chickens up and we went to my mom and dads for the night. I never ever want to see a tornado up close and in person ever ever again... and I'm terrified of storms!!
No comments:
Post a Comment