Monday, May 3, 2010

Tornadoes


As I'm sure you've all heard, Arkansas and other southern states had some horrible weather this past weekend. Tornadoes ripped through states on Friday night and then threatened us again on Saturday evening. The above picture was taken in Scotland, Arkansas. I've been to Scotland many, many times. It's about a 15-20 minute drive from my mother's house in the sticks. Just a year or so ago, this same county was torn apart by tornadoes. It's a sad, sad thing to see.

I called my mother to make sure she was okay. She said that she was. The tornadoes had just missed her. She said she could hear the roar and her dog went crazy, but her home and everything was left untouched. Thank God.




This picture was taken by a friend. It's the funnel cloud we saw Saturday evening and this isn't too far away from our house.

Then again Saturday evening, we heard the threats of dangerous weather. Hubs and I were on our way back from Sam's Club when my stepmother called in a panic asking us where we were at. We told her we were near the Mayflower exit and asked why. We had no idea what was going on - we were listening to XM radio and had heard none of the warnings. She then informed us that there was a funnel cloud spotted at the Mayflower exit - right where we were. We looked up and sure enough - there was a funnel cloud rotating and trying to drop down. Our truck was being knocked around slightly from the wind. We took the exit, trying to get away from the rotation in case it did finally drop all the way down. Little did we know, we were going in the same direction as it was. We drove out to the middle of nowhere, listening to the live weather reports on the radio station, and calling my parents to get more info every 5 minutes. We couldn't go home - that rotation was going to go straight over our house! It's very, very scary to see something like that and be stuck in your truck and not a home near you to go into and hide. We drove through small towns and heard their sirens going off. We kept a look out to the sky - which was all shades of black and blue. Finally, we made it to my grandparent's house - where everyone was riding out the storm.
Thankfully, that rotation never touched down. They said there were at least 8 different storm cells that moved through our state that night. Each one, capable of producing a tornado. Thank God, we were all safe.

I just wanted to say Thank You to everyone who left me a comment wondering if we were affected by the storms. Thankfully, my family was lucky and untouched, but there are many who were not.

8 comments:

Marlene said...

This is scary stuff! I'm glad everyone is okay.

Lisa said...

spooky stuff. I grew up in ohio and remember all to well a few close calls with tornados

Stephanie said...

Thank you so much for the prayers for us Nashvillians. Every one counts. I'm praying for you guys too. Such devastation from Mother Nature lately...

jayewalking.com said...

That's terrifying. I hate this time of year because of the nasty weather. I'm so glad you guys are ok. We are dealing with the flooding here in Nashville. It's absolutely surreal.

Run Jess Run said...

Holy cow, girl! Thank God you guys are ok!!!

lindsay said...

so scary!! glad you and your family are ok. hurricanes - at least you can get a warning with those. tornados and earthquakes are the worst!! what is with all this extreme weather this year? scary :(

Jenni said...

You poor dear! That is so scary!! I'm so glad you and the pups are all okay!

Q, La, and Gooner said...

Oh my goodness that is so scary! I used to live in Nebraska where there were loads of Tornados so I understand your fear. I'm so glad that you were all safe!