We had a mini tornado run through the yard!

It was about 4:40 PM. I was sitting at the compter which is next to the fireplace. The wind began making a strange LOUD sound as it blew across the top of the chimney. "That NOT right!" I exclaimed as I put down the keyboard and raced to the front door.

The girls started shrieking. (They remember the lightning strike VERY well.) "Shut up and stay inside the house," I instructed. The rain was falling lightly and the wind dying down as I opened the front door. A bucket that had previously been in our side yard was in the middle of the lane. The inflatable baby pool was in the neighbor's driveway. A garbage can* was down the street on its side. I retrieved our items and double checked that it wasn't our garbage can. I unlocked the garage pedestrian door and put the container of toys inside.

A fire truck cruised down the street. A couple of the fire fighers eyed me, but since I was obviously fine they continued on. As I returned to our porch, a police cruiser slowly rolled past. "Something happened and they are checking for damage. Turn on the news station."

The 24 hour local news station was running the noon news again. I watched the news scroll across the bottom. No mention of tornadic activity. It wasn't until almost twenty minutes later that I turned over to the regular station and discovered "We've been live with breaking news about the weather situation for the last hour..."

Really? Do you think you could have mentioned it on your other station?

I glanced out into the back yard. Limbs were down all over the place! Most were just twigs, but four long limbs of about one to two inches diamater were up against the dining room. I zipped back out the front door in time to see the neighbor retrieving his garbage can.*

*These garbage cans are about 90 gallon jobbers that the trucks lift to empty.


We soon discovered that others had not been so lucky. There were fatalities in Suffolk. The hospital there was damaged. Several houses were destroyed, many more severely damaged. We saw pictures of vehicles with power poles or trees crunched through them. Several vehicles were flipped. I saw video of a law enforcement officer getting on his hands and knees to check that one upside down car was indeed empty.

Charles was late home. Apparently once they got all the employees down to the ground floor, they wouldn't let them leave. A water spout took out power to part of the base. We saw a cell phone picture of (most likely) the same water spout. The photographer was a friend of the weather lab guy and sent it to him. They had to upload the picture to show it on the news.

Cell phone activity was reported as sporadic. People in Suffolk could receive but not send calls. We are literally two minutes from Suffolk, but most of the damage appears to be 20 to 30 minutes away from our house.

When I finally got tired of listening, they had just reported that the governor will be making disaster area declarations very soon.

And in the middle of all of this, I had a child having a temper tantrum. Got to love Motherhood.