The tornado

Hello again.  Here is a photo of the twister that hit the Boy Scout camp last night.  If you remember from my earlier blog - or did I write this - there were storm chasers out last night from Discovery Channel taking photos and videos.  The photo is magnificent, the result is horrible.  The camp was completely destroyed.

Again...

Once again we are OK.  This storm was worse but we were fortunate there was no tornado that touched down in our area this time.  We did finally hear about the last tornado and the EF1 that touched down was 1/2 mile from the house...I knew that wind sounded bad.

Last night the sirens went off for over an hour while we waited with baited breath to see if something would happen.  The wind was never really bad but the hail and rain were. We actually saw the clouds rotating above us and watched from the front porch as a wall cloud passed to the north of us.  It was absolutely stunning and scary at the same time.

We are very fortunate that everyone was home at the time and we were eating dinner. If you haven't heard about the boy scouts, there was a tornado 21 miles from here that hit a camp.  Four boys - three from Omaha - were killed and at least 50 are at local hospitals for injuries.  There was a Discovery Channel storm catcher team out last night in an armored vehicle and the reporter said the winds were at least 150mph.  I believe that would have made the twister at least an EF3; major damage.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those families today and with those that have more damage to clean up again today.  Maybe Mother Nature will leave us alone for a few days so our grounds can dry up and our roofs can be patched. 

2:30 in the morning

There is nothing like being woken up at 2:30 in the morning by winds that sound like they are going to rip your roof off.  

We had severe thunderstorms earlier in the evening but the tornado watch had been canceled around midnight.  Jeff and I both woke up with the thunder and lightening booming around us and shinning in every window and the winds were pretty nasty.  Jeff opened up the laptop to check on the status and just as I was saying "these winds are way too strong for just a thunderstorm" the sirens went off.  Grab the kids, the blankets, pillows and the dog and run downstairs.  

Now for those fellow Nebraskans who are reading this last night didn't seem like such a big deal at first - in fact our neighbor across the street never even heard the sirens. But for us Californians who are not used to winds averaging between 60-100m.p.h. this was a REALLY BIG deal.  About 45 minutes later we had the kids tucked back into bed and Jeff and I were watching the news to survey the damage and if there would be another storm.  We took a quick survey of the house and figured no major damage had been done, must have just been some strong wind and rains.

Well, if you have seen the news today, we had an EF2 touch down and make a path 1/2 mile wide through the middle of town.  There is some significant damage done, but we were not in its path thank goodness.  The majority of the damage was done in the middle of Omaha where mostly businesses are located.  There is damage to personal property and homes - one family said their neighbors roof ripped off and landed in their master bedroom.  Around our neighborhood we have trees and fences down and some damage to signs, light posts and rain gutters on homes.  

Scary thought what some wind can do, then add the frightening sound of booming thunder and it is quite a show.  Terrible but beautiful at the same time.  I just wanted to let you all know we are fine and dandy, just a little soaked and tired today.

P.S.  I am just now reading the articles and looking at the photos.  I am so thankful our house was not hit and pray for those who have lost so much.  Here are some photos, check out the link and look at the World-Herald photo gallery .