Lucky

Wednesday afternoon, at around 4:30 PM, an EF4 tornado plowed through my town. Todd and I had decided to head home between storms; my sister and her family were already at our house, as we had power at the time and they didn't. Four adults, three children, two cats, and a dog all rode it out in our master bedroom closet. Immediately before we scurried for cover, I saw the massive, non-stop lightning out our living room window and we heard the roar.

After the storm passed, we looked out to see tiny bits of debris scatted all across our yard and our neighbor's yards - insulation, flashing, tar paper, books, textbooks, a child's pillowcase, mail, vacation photos. Aside from a few downed trees, none of it was from our neighborhood. At the time we didn't realize how bad things were around us.

Long story short, the tornado passed about a quarter mile west of our house. It destroyed several houses along the road behind us, took out the church we were just thinking of checking out, then moved northeast and obliterated an entire neighborhood. Nine people died; several more were injured.

Thursday morning we learned that due to the destruction of several transmission lines from TVA, power was out to the entire county and several surrounding counties, and likely to remain out until next week. After talking with my parents, we all drove up to Hendersonville, Tennessee with the kids. Todd and Josh headed back yesterday afternoon with generators, bottled water, and gasoline. They got our freezers and refrigerators powered up, and now they're doing what they can to help. Josh is hosting a church relief group. Todd is helping a friend dig out his heavily damaged home. Cell service is still very spotty. There are several people we still haven't heard from.

Elizabeth and I stayed behind in Hendersonville. The latest news is that TVA expects Huntsville to have power by Monday, but I haven't heard about my area of Harvest. We'll probably go back when one or both of us has power.

This has been a completely surreal experience. Even though we had no damage, and not a single hair on the head of family member, cat, or dog was injured, it's been...bad. You have to understand, the tornadoes hit, and everything went dark. No news, no contact with anyone you couldn't reach in person, no idea what was going on. Just one radio station and hundreds of panicked callers. No electricity, no gasoline, no phones, the roads were a mess. Anything and everything just stopped. The people that could just left town. There was no checking in with your boss, no postponing your appointments or meetings, no notifying your friends. You packed up and you left, and on your way out you drove past horrifying scenes, like something out of a movie or a nightmare.

Micah seemed fine at first, but he woke up four times last night with nightmares about the "big storm at our house." Yesterday afternoon, he saw a pile of lumber in my parents' yard and wanted to know what had happened, if a storm had knocked that house down. I keep telling him that we're all okay, that our house is okay, and his daddy is just staying home to take care of things while the power is out. We'll see how he does tonight.

Elizabeth and I have spent a lot of time devouring the news slowly trickling out of the area and relaying it to the friends and family left behind. It sounds like things are gradually moving towards normal, at least in Huntsville. It's harder to find information about Harvest.

So. That's how Wednesday ended. It could have been so much worse for us personally (we really have NOTHING to complain about), but it was terrible for our community as a whole.