Been MIA (Long)

Mrs.G_09 · June 2010

Hi ladies! As some of you may know from FB, I haven't been around this week due to a tornado that came through my city Monday night. Thankfully we have no structural damage or trees down, but we were without power for two days because the tornado came through five houses down and took out the transformer supplying power to our neighborhood.

The whole experience was very scary, especially since I was home alone at the time with our dogs. My husband was at work and we had talked a couple times before it hit. The last conversation I had with him was as the sirens were going off here and he was telling me they were being taken off the phones and moved into a room. I was foolishly waiting to go to the basement because we have no tv reception down there right now and I got a call from my mom. She asked if I was in the basement and I said no. She said to get down there asap because there was a tornado on the ground to the southwest of our city and it was headed our way. As soon as she said that I lost cell service. I grabbed my computer and the dogs and headed to the basement. A local station was streaming live online and I was watching that when they focused in on a rotation just to the west of us. Peach ran to the window and would not stop barking. Then the lights dimmed two times before completely going out the on the third dim. At that time Peach ran and jumped in my lap and began to cry. That's when I got really worried because my dogs have never been bothered by storms. Later I found out the window my dog would not stop barking at was facing the direction where the tornado passed by.

I waited in the basement until I couldn't see anymore lightning through the window before going upstairs. I looked out my front window and saw cars moving slowly down our streets and then 2 cops car racing down the street with their lights on. One of my neighbors was out in his driveway and so I figured it was safe and I went out to the end of my driveway. There were several cops and firetrucks down the street, which at the time we didn't know what for, but it was because of the transformer and power lines being down. I continued to try making calls because my phone was notifying me of voicemails, but with no luck. I just stood and watched the lightning in the clouds to the south for awhile since there was nothing to do but wait. A car pulled into my driveway and my MIL's head popped out of the window saying "Are you okay?" She then told me she was worried because she heard reports of a tornado and couldn't get ahold of me or my SIL and decided to drive over and check on us. She couldn't get down my SIL's street because there were so many trees down and had to walk to their house with the help of a neighbor. They are fine except for many trees down in their yard. She offered to take me and the dogs to her house to wait for Jason since she had not lost power. As we drove back to her house (she lives a 1/2 mile away from us) we saw some of the damage and I was shocked. I always see tornado damage on tv, but I've never thought that I would see it in my own city. The tornado went right down the main street of our city. Our post office, firestation, a condo building, liquor store, and restaurant all had structural damage. Everything else was mostly trees. They are classifying it as an EF1. There was another EF2 to the southwest of us which destroyed several homes, but thankfully no one was hurt by either tornado.

After Jason got home from work we went home to discover our basement had flooded. We spent the entire night bailing our sump pump to prevent any further damage. Good news is I think we were able to save the carpeting. It's been an exhausting few days but I consider myself pretty lucky considering everything that happened.

Now I have to catch up on everything I missed here!

CanadianBride84 · June 2010

I am just happy to hear that you and Jason are okay. What a crazy experience!

Lisa7 · June 2010

Oh my gosh, what a horrifying story! I am so glad that you are OK and sorry that you had to go through all of that. I saw your FB post but didn't realize you were that close.

Ms.Beachbum08 · June 2010

That is extremely scary. Imagine if you would have gone over to the window. However, I am glad that you are ok and your home for the most part is okay.

sillybiochemist · June 2010

Glad to hear you're ok. Talk about a crazy night!

If you haven't considered it before, it might be worth contacting a plumber about a backup sump pump that is WATER powered. We have one in our current house and had on in our old house in Illinois. That way if the power goes out you don't have to worry about the battery on the backup sump pump to kick in. If the plumber says he can't do it (because of debris in the water line--not joking), call another one. We ran into that when we moved into our current home and just needed to get ahold of a different plumber.