Where are my ruby slippers Dorothy??

I am normally very aware of the weather, and any imminent danger. I have mentioned I have been in two tornado's, and I have a tendency to panic when the weather turns bad. So I was a little surprised when Mike flipped on the TV, and we hear "Tornado warning take cover", for our area. Wha?????? I looked outside, and it was beginning to look a little cloudy therefore I decided to venture out into the front yard.

I turned to look at the sky, and this is what I saw.........not a good site. Nice wall cloud huh?


I turned around quickly to tell Mike that the sky looked tornadic, and this is what I ran into.....

I don't mind snakes.......as long as they don't surprise me. This little sucker surprised me! I did however regain my composure, and snapped a picture. I believe it's a copperhead....any guesses? See his tail....he was rather long. I guess he didn't like the impending storms either, goodness knows our dogs didn't. They were going insane in the backyard.

Suddenly the sky turned a very dark eerie green, and I knew what this meant. I went to the back window just in time to see rotating black clouds getting lower, and my heart sank. I grabbed the baby, and yelled to Mike. Mike seemed rather nonchalant until the wind picked up, and it became so loud that we couldn't hear the tornado sirens. He yelled for us to get into the bathroom, and I huddled with Jude in the dark (the electricity went out) praying we would be ok. It is hard to describe how loud the wind sounded, and I was unsure what was going on outside. I pictured roofs being torn off, fences down, and flying debris. When it was over I emerged from the bathroom, and Mike ventured outside. I had let Emily go with a friend to the ballpark. I was worried about her, but I knew a cement structure like the ballpark would be a safe place to be. Mike surveyed the house, but to our surprise we didn't see any major damage.

My cousin called right after the storm. She normally gives me a hard time for being panicked in weather, but she said she herself was "mildly concerned". I got a kick out of that statement. She had been eating at a restaurant, and then began telling me about all the damage around the city. Since Mike sells roofs we decided to hop in the car to pass out cards, and to see exactly what happened. Also, we still didn't have electricity, and I didn't want to keep the baby in the hot house. We were able to get out for a few hours, and keep Jude in a cool temperature. These are some of the sites we saw.

We couldn't go down this road:


Poor people had their trampoline wind up in their front yard, their shingles were everywhere, and their back roof was ripped off.




All their trees were blown down.


That was just a bit of the damage. After passing out cards we headed to my cousins house. Her city got hit worse than ours, and she was without electricity.............and still is today. Which means everything in her fridge, freezers, etc is gone. Her fence is gone, her pool furniture is in her pool, etc, but thankfully nothing worse happened. I told Mike that this was just a small tornado picking up and touching down, I cannot imagine an f3-f5 tornado! I grew up around tornado cellars, and this made me want one.

We finally got back home. I talked with Em and wished her good night (she was staying with her friend), and we luckily had electricity back. We went to bed thinking the storms were over only to get woken up by more severe storms at 4:30, and 5:30. My drive to work was atrocious because all the stop lights were out, so it took me hours to get here. Once I got into work we got hit by yet another storm, and we are bombarded with claims. We have asked our receptionist to stay today to help field phone calls, and we are praying these storms stop soon. I joked that I was building a concrete ark, and it seems everyone wants on it. So a few thoughts for those that lost their roofs, and are still getting tons of rain. I know that must be so upsetting.

The weather seemed to affect Jude last night as well. For some reason Jude's seizure activity increases during storms, and he had a long attack last night. He quickly recovered once the seizure was done, and I rocked him for a bit. He also didn't like the loud lightning in the early morning hours. I am truly interested in knowing if research has been conducted on severe storms and increases in seizures.

Little Face photography that held our Littlest Heroes shoot should have our previews pics on their blog some time today. Crossing my fingers they are good.
http://www.littlefacesphotography.blogspot.com/



Ps. My dad said the snake is a diamond backed water snake, and non venomous....still to big for my taste.....