Holy fear, batman!

Wow. We had a mini-hurricane whip right over our house yesterday. In reflecting on it since it happened, it occurred to me I've never been that scared in my whole life. And what ended with an EFzero tornado (not for me, don't worry) is what did it. I can't begin to imagine if that storm had produced an EF2, 3, 4, or 5. Yikes.

Here's what happened. I was having a normal day at home with Ellie. I started to notice it was getting kind of dark outside. Not a big deal. Looked like a normal summer thunderstorm was coming. Just to be an informed citizen, I went and checked out the radar. Severe thunderstorm warning. No big deal. Looked like the worst of it was going to be just north of us according to the news. No warnings out for my county. I kept an eye on it, but it just never seemed that bad. I went outside to make sure all the toys were inside, and stopped to watch the sky for a minute. It still looked slightly north of us. I checked the radar on TV again, and it still didn't look like it was coming for us - we'd expereience the thunderstorm, but the worst wouldn't hit us. Apparently the nat'l weather service radar was showing it would smack us according to Sean, but I had already shut down the computer in case the power went out so I couldn't see that. I went up to wash something and kept watching out the window over the sink.

The sky started looking green to me, so I went out to see which way things were moving. All of a sudden the sky starts looking green, and clouds so dark the sky looked purple, and red clouds were moving quickly towards me. I quickly headed into the house, locked everything, and with amazing speed the storm moved straight for my neighborhood with a vengeance and I tore up the stairs, yanked Ellie out of her crib in a sound sleep, and ran as fast as I could to the basement. As I was getting her, the wind went NUTS, and kept seeming to get worse as I went to the basement. I was TERRIFIED! I ran up one level to glance at the TV, which was showing purple and black right over where I live. BLACK - I'm thinking, I've never seen BLACK!!!! We're done for! By then the sirens were going off a 2nd time, we were upgraded to a tornado warning, and the wind was so loud. I was sure we were going to be hit by a tornado. I've never been so sure. I was in the safest corner of the basement with Ellie tucked under me in tornado position (against the wall, head tucked in, completely wrapped around Ellie). I sat and listened, trembling, and I could hear amazing wind and snapping sounds. I was chanting "God, keep us safe" "God, keep us safe" over and over. After about 10 minutes, all I could hear was strong wind, so I snuck up to the TV, and the worst was past us.

We found out later, that a tornado came out of that storm and touched down about 3 minutes southeast from the exact line it moved over our house (that's about like 10 miles away, I want to say, but the storm was so quick, it had to have been 2-3 minutes after coming through here). That's as close as I EVER want to come to a tornado.

The snapping sounds were boards and nails from our privacy fence popping off. 2 boards were down, 1 crossbrace, and one joint is loosened. We almost lost a whole side of that fence. Some trees went down in the neighborhood, someone's basketball hoop knocked over, almost landing on their car, and a bunch of branches were down. It could have been a lot worse.

The reason I was so scared, as if all of this weren't already enough, is because I just KNEW at the time there would be a tornado, I was waiting to hear deafening noise and things crashing above me in the house. And I was so terrified I wouldn't be able to hold onto Ellie, especially with her giant awkward cast. There is nothing worse than a storm with small children! I'm convinced. Matthew was at daycare, in case you're wondering. Even though they're only 1.5 miles away, they are just enough NW of us, that it wasn't nearly as bad right there, though there were plenty of branches down.

Whew, at least we're safe and no major damage occurred. I'm calling it a mini-hurricane since the winds were 65-75mph. We're due for worse storms today, but they should at least be more predictable. At least, that's what they're saying. God help us all!

To my CA readers, I'm ready to pack up and come join you (not seriously), but then I'd have to worry about earthquakes and my state falling into the ocean...