Southern Tornadoes Hit a Little Too Close to Home

First, I am fine. Ed is fine. My parents are fine.

Large portions of the very small town in which my parents live, however, are not. About 8:45 p.m., I learned that a tornado a mile wide was headed straight for their town. The town has a population of about 1,000. Mile-wide tornado + small town = the possibility of really bad news. I was terrified waiting for them to call after it was over.

It is scary to see video shot by a local newspaper that shows disarray in the downtown that contains this gazebo where Ed and I had our photo taken after our wedding five years ago tomorrow…

And to see shots of cars coming across this bridge we walked across after the wedding…

And to see huge trees uprooted in the park where we took photos on our walk after the wedding.

The park is also where we went for a walk with Francis and my sister when they visited two years ago just after Christmas.

As I said, my parents are fine. Their house is fine. But a house less than a mile from them (as the crow flies) was completely destroyed. That house wasn’t the only one destroyed. But it was the house my dad was at when I called to check in on them again this morning. (Another severe thunderstorm hit after we talked last night.) Dad was helping the owners gather up what could be salvaged. There wasn’t much.

This all hit WAY too close to home. It could have been my parents’ home. Or my parents. So many people were killed from these storms.

By the way, the video I mentioned? It was taken yesterday MORNING after a bad storm including lots of straight-line winds came through. So, the worst was still 12 hours in the future.

I am so thankful my parents are o.k. I am praying for the families of those who are not.