The Tornado

I'm a bit behind on a couple of blog entries that I wanted to post... I've been kind of busy. You know, with all the baby having and everything. Well, the evening before all of that started the kids and I were home doing our thing. I was cleaning out clothes in Cooper's room, making space for bigger sizes, and they were watching a recorded show on TV. We had been swimming earlier that day and everything to that point seemed like a normal summer day in DFW. As I was working, I faintly heard a siren in the distance. I asked the kids to turn on live TV and see if there was any news about bad weather in our area. Right as they did, I heard something about a tornado that was passing our town at that very moment. I yelled to the kids to run to my closet NOW! They did. I grabbed my purse which contained my cell phone and followed close behind. Almost immediately, we lost power. In our rush, we had not gotten a flashlight... or our dog... or any food and water. The thunder was incredibly loud, the walls started to shake, and the sound of water running down the outside of the house was so loud that it sounded like it was inside. We were all scared. We prayed then I called Corey and told him to stay in Dallas. I didn't know where the storm was heading, and I didn't want him to drive into it. After a few minutes I decided to run out of the closet and find Milly, our dog, and try to get a flashlight, and I saw that the light coming in the windows was green. I finally found Milly who was hiding and scared, and I found Cooper's little battery operated night light. We ended up staying in the closet for about 40 minutes, and it was dark and hot and scary. When we finally came out, it was so eeirie. There were emergency vehichle sirens non-stop for over an hour, and there were several neighbors outside surveying their damage. There were fallen trees, broken fences, roofs that were missing singles, and toys and trash strewn through the yards. Thankfully, no one that I know of was hurt.

Here are a few (blurry) photos that I took when we got out of the closet. It was still raining, so standing inside for the first one then quickly ran out then back in for the other 2.

~ tree debris all over the yard ~

~ the back fence totally down ~

~ sections of the fence and the gate were lying on the ground ~

It was getting dark fast, so the kids and I found as many candles as we could and lit them all around the living room and kitchen.

~ Cooper with his TykeLight ~

Our electricity stayed off all evening and into the night. After several hours of darkness boredom and heat, we decided to take a drive and see if we could find out how many houses had lost their electricity. We drove for a few miles in the dark and finally we saw a lit up palm tree at a snow cone store, Bahama Bucks, in the distance. It was literally a beacon in the the night. :) It was around 10:00pm, but we decided to stop for snow cones and some air conditioning. When we returned home, we did all that we could to prepare for the next morning - Jacob's big day - in the dark, and just as Allie, Jack, & I were blowing out candles and going to bed the electricity came back on. I was so happy to not have to sleep without air conditioning! It stormed incredibly hard all night and throughout the next day, but thankfully we have not had any more tornadic activity. We found out later that there had in fact been a tornado that traveled right through our part of town on Wednesday night. I am so thankful that my kids and I were protected in the storm and even that we had more peace than we probably should have. God is good.