A Scary Night

We had some wild weather move through our area last night just at the start of rush hour. There's talk of a tornado but I haven't heard definitively if we had one. This out-of-nowhere storm did some serious damage and even killed a lady in her car. She'd pulled over to wait out the storm and a massive tree toppled over and crushed her in her car. The other 2 people in the car survived but that 30 yr old woman is no more. So sad! My heart goes out to her family.

I was unable to even get home last night. The roads were impassible due to downed trees. Highways were parking lots. No one was going anywhere. After not moving for 45 minutes, I turned around and headed to a friend's house. She put Logan and I up last night which was so kind of her and I am eternally grateful to her for her aide in our time of need.

Logan and I got up early this morning and decided to try to get home so we could shower and change for school and work. We did get home only to find that we still have no power. I took a shower by candle light. So not romantic. Obviously, I was unable to curl my hair this morning at home so I brought my curling iron to work and did my hair at my desk before people started filing in.

Jim managed to make it home after 3 hrs of sitting in traffic. He had to park his car about 1/2 mile from our house and walk the rest of the way. I was glad he got home so he would be safe but also so he could feed our furballs. They were, no doubt, glad to see him as I'm sure the storm was scary for them as well.

He called me when he got home to tell me that the outside furballs that I feed were ok if not wind blown and soaking wet. I was relieved to hear that.

So, we have no power and we're told it's not expected to be restored until at least Sunday if not later due to all the damage and debris that must be cleared first before crews can begin repairing the downed lines.

Here are a number of pics of what my immediate neighborhood looks like.

That white thing next to the man is a section of the college's football field bleachers. They were ripped out and thrown into the street behind my house. Another section is on the other side of the street next to where that truck is. They were working on dismantling it. At least they'd moved them from the middle of the street thus allowing traffic to flow on that block.

This is my corner again. I took this shot with the little girls waiting for the school bus to give some perspective as to how big that tree is. You can just make out that there is a car under the tree.

This is a house 6 doors down from me. There is a house behind all that green. It's the house next to the white door. The door to this house is completely blocked by the tree. They can't get out of their house.

This is a view of my street from the opposite direction. You can see some debris from the tree above.

This is the corner at the end of my block. You can see some of the white bubble from the college tennis courts in the background. The bubble is destroyed. Half of the vinyl tarp from the bubble is hanging on the side of the campus gym which is the building to the left of it.

This is the other side of the corner.

A closer view of the massive tree blocking my block.

Here's the other half of it.

As you can see by that woman's leg, I wasn't the only one taking pics this morning.

This is the view I got as I turned onto my block when I tried to get home this morning.

Here's another view of the tree that landed on the house 6 doors down from me.

This is in front of my house.

Considering all the damage which can be cleaned up, I'm thankful that my loved ones are safe.