Had a tornado here last night.
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:55 amHey guys! Had a hell of a evening last night, and why I didn't do anymore posting or anything.
We had a very bad storm blow up and a tornade (an F2 in size) came to visit me and my parents on their land here.
I need not tell you how frightening an experience it was, as we live in "trailers" or modular homes.
Fortunately no one here got hurt, but we did get some damage. Funny thing was, I didn't loose power until it was right over top of us!
They just got the power back on about 5 hours ago, at about 3:30 AM my time.
This all happened at about 6:30 pm last night, my time, oh yah, EST.
My wife was at work and they had everyone in Walmart get to the center of the store, as that's where it headed next after paying us a visit here. So it was just me and my step son Josh here last night. The winds started really picking up, and I turned from my computer to look out the window in our computer room here, to see an aquamarine looking sky, rain that had gone horizontal, and the trees bent over and stayed that way (when a tornado get's close, trees will bend towards it), as the roaring of the wind got louder, I realized that we had a tornado bearing down on us.
I grabbed my son Josh and tossed him under his mom's computer desk, as it's big and heavy wood, and covered him up with the blanket, and then I squated down in front of it to block the opening incase the window shattered to protect him from any flying glass. We didn't have time to get anywhere else, it was that fast.
Then the whole house started to rock and shake, and that's when the power went. Lasted about 30 seconds or so. Josh was upset, but there was nothing that I could tell him except that it would be over soon. Finally the house stopped rocking, and the roaring died down. I got up and told Josh to stay put, and went around the house looking.
The only thing that happened to our house is that one of my living room windows blew out.
Rest of the yard was not so lucky. As soon as the winds died down, I broke out the camcorder, and took these shots.
BTW - Tornadoes do happen here, but not that often.
Hmmmm....well that's one more natural disaster I've been through. Leaves only a erupting volcano and a tidal wave as the only things I haven't been through.
Heres the pics
This is one of my parents sheds that I share with them. note that all you can see is the mowers and stuff. The shed structure is gone:
Here is where it ended up:
My dad had a band stage built behind their house. It was so my sister's band could come out and perform for him on his birthday last August. We had power to it and everything. It was made out of heavy wooden pallets and ply wood, and rested on cynder blocks. It's gone:
Here are parts of the stage where the twister picked it up and flung it:
When it picked the stage up, it ripped the wires from the other shed:
My parents house suffered some damage. They and I were lucky, further up the hill, where my step mom's sister and husband live, they lost their roof.
This is where the siding from my parents house ended up, in this tree. It's about 80 feet up in the air:
A refridgerator that we were moving got blown over:
One of my parent's trees was blown over:
Hard to tell from this shot, but that pine tree was about 3 feet wide where it was snapped:
Josh's bike had a run in with a large branch from one of the pines:
And it blew his toys around:
A shot I don't have, if my wife had not been to work, our Ford Explorer would have been totaled, and the top of a pine crashed down right where it normally would have been parked.
I'll be spending the day helping clean up out side.
Whew!
We had a very bad storm blow up and a tornade (an F2 in size) came to visit me and my parents on their land here.
I need not tell you how frightening an experience it was, as we live in "trailers" or modular homes.
Fortunately no one here got hurt, but we did get some damage. Funny thing was, I didn't loose power until it was right over top of us!
They just got the power back on about 5 hours ago, at about 3:30 AM my time.
This all happened at about 6:30 pm last night, my time, oh yah, EST.
My wife was at work and they had everyone in Walmart get to the center of the store, as that's where it headed next after paying us a visit here. So it was just me and my step son Josh here last night. The winds started really picking up, and I turned from my computer to look out the window in our computer room here, to see an aquamarine looking sky, rain that had gone horizontal, and the trees bent over and stayed that way (when a tornado get's close, trees will bend towards it), as the roaring of the wind got louder, I realized that we had a tornado bearing down on us.
I grabbed my son Josh and tossed him under his mom's computer desk, as it's big and heavy wood, and covered him up with the blanket, and then I squated down in front of it to block the opening incase the window shattered to protect him from any flying glass. We didn't have time to get anywhere else, it was that fast.
Then the whole house started to rock and shake, and that's when the power went. Lasted about 30 seconds or so. Josh was upset, but there was nothing that I could tell him except that it would be over soon. Finally the house stopped rocking, and the roaring died down. I got up and told Josh to stay put, and went around the house looking.
The only thing that happened to our house is that one of my living room windows blew out.
Rest of the yard was not so lucky. As soon as the winds died down, I broke out the camcorder, and took these shots.
BTW - Tornadoes do happen here, but not that often.
Hmmmm....well that's one more natural disaster I've been through. Leaves only a erupting volcano and a tidal wave as the only things I haven't been through.
Heres the pics
This is one of my parents sheds that I share with them. note that all you can see is the mowers and stuff. The shed structure is gone:
Here is where it ended up:
My dad had a band stage built behind their house. It was so my sister's band could come out and perform for him on his birthday last August. We had power to it and everything. It was made out of heavy wooden pallets and ply wood, and rested on cynder blocks. It's gone:
Here are parts of the stage where the twister picked it up and flung it:
When it picked the stage up, it ripped the wires from the other shed:
My parents house suffered some damage. They and I were lucky, further up the hill, where my step mom's sister and husband live, they lost their roof.
This is where the siding from my parents house ended up, in this tree. It's about 80 feet up in the air:
A refridgerator that we were moving got blown over:
One of my parent's trees was blown over:
Hard to tell from this shot, but that pine tree was about 3 feet wide where it was snapped:
Josh's bike had a run in with a large branch from one of the pines:
And it blew his toys around:
A shot I don't have, if my wife had not been to work, our Ford Explorer would have been totaled, and the top of a pine crashed down right where it normally would have been parked.
I'll be spending the day helping clean up out side.
Whew!
The good news is that you and your family are alright.
