If you read my previous post, you saw that we had a beautiful evening for the Halloween Parade.
Little did we know what was in store for the following day...
The day started out partly cloudy and they were calling for severe thunderstorms in the afternoon. OK...probably have indoor recess, was my thought.
I left the school at 11:00am for lunch. On my drive back to the school, they came over the radio and announced a thunderstorm warning for the counties north of us.
When I walked in the school, all the kids and staff were in the hallway, sitting.
Oh...
I passed the Principal on my way in and he said, "Fun times!"
They had received a call from the police chief to get everyone in the halls and prepare for the worst.
When I passed the cafeteria, it was completely deserted, with all the lunches left on the tables. It was kind of eerie...
I got to the Kindergarten Hallway, and there they all were. All three Kindergarten classes, the Pre-first class, the LD class, and the MD Unit. The kids were just sitting along the walls and a teacher was reading a book to them. After the book, we sang songs.
Then the announcement came that we were to get in tornado position. The kids all turned around on their hands and knees and covered their heads with their hands.
This.was.for.real.
The adults kept singing, and watching...
The wind picked up and it started to rain. Luckily, all we could see was out the door at the end of the hallway. I know, that if I could have seen more, I probably would have lost it...
Then, you could hear it. And the lights went out.
You always hear that a tornado sounds just like a freight train...IT DOES!!!
The good news, it was over as fast as it began.
The kids stayed down another ten minutes, and they were all great! What a good bunch of troopers. Sure, a few cried. But I think it was more out of frustration from sitting the way they had to, than really being too scared. As soon as we got the OK to let the kids turn around, they all got Jolly Ranchers!
Soon, we were released to go back to the classrooms and proceed with the day.
Of course, every adult had a cell phone out and the reports of what had happened in town started to come in.
When my kids were all home safely, we went for a walk to see the damage for ourselves.
This house is the worst hit. The roof completely blew off, hit the neighbor's house across the street and threw it off it's foundation. Both of these houses will be demolished and rebuilt.
This is an old gymnasium that was used for storage.
These trees were completely uprooted.
This is the temporary fencing that was placed around our old school building.
We are so blessed that we were not in this building when this happened. It was right in the path of destruction.
We had walked down the main street and saw a lot of debris. There were pieces of siding, roofing, insulation and wood everywhere. Lots of places were taped off with security tape.
We passed one house that was taped off. C2 asked what was wrong with that house. To look at it, you could see no damage.
Then, when you looked up, in the tree in the front yard, was this...
A WHOLE FREAKING GARAGE DOOR WRAPPED AROUND THE TOP OF THE TREE!
This was when I knew how lucky we all really were.
All this damage, and not one injury...
God is so good!
