Tornado

(The boys and me in the basement behind heavy furniture and pillows. Mike also wanted us to wear helmets in case something bad happened. This is around 11:45 p.m. Do my boys look tired?)

My family has been asking to see a few pictures of the recent tornado.

Here are a few....

The sirens went off around 10:30 p.m. Mike and I were just getting to bed. We tried so hard to carefully carry our sleeping children downstairs. Of coarse they woke up ready for the party. Notice, Ike is eating a little Debbie Swiss Roll. We realize that this isn't the best treat to feed your children at 11:45 at night, but the carrot sticks were in the fridge and we (as nervous parents) were trying hard not to freak out our little boys. Now, however, our children look forward to tornadoes. They ask each night if they will get to be carried downstairs, and have a treat. I'm guessing this backfired on us. Next time sacrifice your body for the carrot sticks-=)

Claffin Road in Campus. South of Call Hall Ice Cream. The tornado blazed it's way up the road and stopped at the American Institute of Baking, about 3/4 mile away from our home. Had Bluemont Hill not interfered with the tornado. It would have been dancing on our roof. We feel so blessed.

Little Apple Toyota Honda. I wish we had a better shot of the whole lot. Cars were flipped upside down, and smashed. The huge pillar sign had fallen on a few. in this picture you can see that all the glass windows have been blown out.

A frat house on Campus.

Look at these roots. (tree's on campus)

Midas (All the garage doors have been blown out)

Tornado's do the strangest things. I wish I had a picture of the Nike Tennis shoe, Mike found stuck (I mean jammed to the point of not being able to budge it with a hammer) into the corner of a door frame, when he was working on cleaning up a few homes.

A few homes in the Miller Ranch neighborhood. Mike worked at a house where the family had just moved in a week ago. Most of these homes are around 5 years old.

A few hard hit homes. Look close behind the car. That is the foundation of a home that has nothing of the main or second story standing. About 85 homes in these neighborhood were completely leveled to the sub floor with nothing left, other than the basement and those basements suffered trauma. Hundreds of homes are being demolished as I type.

This was once True Value Hardware, Right off Seth Child Road, by the movie theater.

Toothpick anyone?

A chunck of the above fraternities roof. Most everything was left in toothpick size slivers. This piece stayed together nicely. (If you look close you can tell that some random windows have been blown out of the Engineering Building behind)

The tornado was unbelievable. Luckily no one in Manhattan was killed, but hundreds of lives were changed in the coarse of 1/2 hour and must slowly be put back together again. Daily we pick up insulation and roofing that has blown all over town. Sometimes we find photographs of people and random documents in the strangest places. It's amazing what nature can do. We feel so blessed. Will is sure to tell everyone, that the reason we were safe is because we said a prayer and Heavenly Father answered it. Strangely, I felt a calmming peace during the whole night, even though the rain was pouring and lightening striking all around. I knew we would be ok. I'm thankful to know that Heavenly Father is in control and if we are prepared we shall not fear. Whatever might come our way.

Perhaps the thing that sticks out about this whole ordeal is the amazing human spirit that emerges in a crisis. So many people are volunteering their time and resources to help. The Red Cross has a few tents and trailers set up in the football stadium parking lot, you can go tell them how much time you have to help, and they will bus you to locations that need work. So many businesses show up to work sites with bottled water, prepared lunches, fruit cups etc... A construction company in town was going home to home the day after, just nailing up plywood over windows, doors, and anything else that needed to be covered. The Red Cross was giving free Tetanus Shots to volunteers who needed one. In the stadium parking lot, it isn't uncommon to see Little Ceasers there with hundreds of pizza's feeding the volunteers. This aftermath teaches our family that community is important and that people truly are good and want to help.