As I listened to the chain saws clearing uprooted and chopped off trees on Thursday, I gave thanks that we were all safe and had minimal damage.
I borrowed the below photo from AL.com
if you go to their link you can see photos of the devastation which wrecked half our state
on Wednesday of this week
This photo was taken less than 2 miles from my house....Any photos which were taken
in the Harvest Community of North Alabama and Huntsville show how close this tornado
came to our house.
This photo was also from AL.com and was taken during the storm by
a Huntsville Times photographer.
The rest are mine
See those little "kite tails" starting to extend down from the clouds in
the picture below...that is what we look for when there is a tornado watch
in our area...a tornado warning means a tornado has already been spotted on the ground
as in the Times photo above...
After I finished my post on Wednesday morning, we had been given the all clear for a while...
although other storms were brewing over Mississippi way.
Daughter asked if I wanted to go over to Mellow Mushroom and have lunch.....
We were seated by a window and after we had given our order, it began to get dark outside.....
We were told they had a "safe place" in a storage room where we could all go....if it got worse....looking out toward Madison, we could see a funnel type cloud which didn't quite reach the ground but then at the ground level, we could see something that might have been cloud so we concluded there might actually be a tornado on the ground over that way.
Daughter and I took our drinks and moved to an inside wall.
By the time our food arrived it was already getting light outside but was raining hard.
School was supposed to let out at 12:15 because of the threat of more bad weather so we quickly ate and started home. The Mellow Mushroom is within 5 miles of our homes so we didn't have far to travel...As we went down Indian Creek Road, we passed
two or three weather sirens going off full blast.....
....the more we traveled toward home, the worse things looked with uprooted trees, fence planks missing, entire fences ripped up, debris and trees across the road. Honestly, I feared what I would find at home.....the children didn't come home and we learned that the school decided to keep them until the roads were cleared.....however, the storms weren't over by a long shot....Electricity went out about 5:30..by that time, my "grands" were home as were most of the 'tech' employees....homeowners began to clean up....Wednesday was garbage collection day and a dozen cans had been blown down my street.....I talked to Honey Bear when I first arrived home and again about 6:00....as storms and tornadoes continued to sweep through, cell coverage and finally my 3G network was lost and I couldn't communicate with anyone....
....I lit candles as dark arrived and managed to read my Kindle by candlelight....Smokey and I went to bed at 10:30....finally my weather radio said the tornado watches and warnings had been canceled.
I do not like the dark...when electricity is off everywhere, it is a black kind of dark...my night lights
didn't work so I burned a jar candle on the bathroom counter all night....it was comforting to wake
periodically and see that glow.
.....Thursday, I replanted my flowers for the second time(the pots had been blown over and all the soil had washed away), tidied up the kitchen, but mostly spent the day stitching and reading until my Kindle battery went dead....I kept checking the frozen food and so far it hadn't thawed.....Around 5:30 PM, I emptied the refrigerator we keep in the garage..the freezer section had two gallon jugs of ice so it was holding up alright....when dusk came, I was beginning to get so lonely and bored with my own company...Smokey wasn't a lot of help....he doesn't talk much....all afternoon and evening, I kept having this feeling that Honey Bear was coming home...I hadn't talked to him since the evening before and the storms weren't over then.....Around 9:00 PM, I went to bed and red a book by candlelight for a while...I was afraid to burn a candle again so I turned on a solar flashlight that Honey Bear had bought to take on a camping trip....the last time I looked at my watch, it was almost 10:00...I had not gone to sleep yet when I head him on the back porch outside my bedroom window, calling my name....I was so happy to see him....He said he had become so worried when he couldn't reach me, that he had to come home and see for himself that I was alright.....
Friday morning, we cooked breakfast on our outdoor grill....then packed up the food from the fridge and freezer, which we thought we could save into 4 ice chests and drove to Tennessee.....we were able to get a room in Smyrna after the first couple of places we tried were full....seems a lot of Alabamians had the same idea...hotels which are usually at 60% this time of year are doing a good business......
more tomorrow....