Storms !!

[luv2teach77 41]

Let me first say that miraculously we dodged a HUGE bullet this week / weekend and we are VERY grateful for that.

On Wednesday night huge sections of the St. Louis Metro area were left without power after severe thunderstorms and high winds knocked out power and damaged buildings throught St. Louis. Those storms missed us completely and apart from some light rain and a bit of thunder we didn't really get bothered by them at all.

On Friday another batch of storms came into the area and our town didn't fare too well that time around. Our home town and several surrounding towns were hit by "tornado like winds" around noon on Friday. We were on our way to Indiana to visit Debs grandparents and received a call from our daughters step mom to say that a tornado had just come down their street (they live about 2 blocks west of us). We spent several hours on the phone trying to get details of the damage before a friend of my father in law did a drive by of our apartment and said that it appeard to have survived unscathed.

We left Indiana a day early as we were sure that we had no power and our cat was at home in a hot apartment. On the way home we stopped at a Walmart and stocked up on ice, flashlights and batteries etc.. ready for a few days without power.

We arrived back around 6pm yesterday evening and the west side of our town is a mess. Trees EVERYWHERE and pretty much a blanket power outage. Pulling into the back of our apartment everything seemed in one piece but it wasn't until we were collecting the trash cans we'd left out on Friday morning that I realised our air conditioning unit was running !! Knowing that it wasn't battery powered we went up into the apartment to find everything like we'd left it. The stuff in the fridge and the freezer was still fine, the apartment was cool and there were no dmdaged windows etc.. Infact that only thing different was cat poop in our bathroom and that was thanks to me leaving the cat litter tray pushed up against the wall after I cleaned it in Friday morning before we left. Poor Harley couldn't go to the bathroom in her litter tray so did the next best thing and pooped on the bathroom floor !!

My inlaws have faired a bit worse. Their power was out and they have a bradford pear tree leaning against the back of their house and their yard was covered in huge limbs that had been blown out of trees in their back yard. We went round yesterday evening and started to help them clear up until it got dark. We had a call from them around 10pm to say that their power had just come back on but this morning its been on and off, probably as they try to get the entire grid back up and running again.

Anyways... it was a blessing that we were out of town. Debs loses it during storms and if we hadn't been out of town I'd have been in work and she'd have been home when it hit.

It appears that we are one of only a handful of properties in Trenton with power, probably due to the fact that we live on a largely commercial block with few trees to bring down power lines. As you can probably tell our cable and internet are working too when I know for a fact that 1 block west has no power at all.

Anyways... Just thought I'd bring you all up to speed on the wonderful midwest weather !!

The links below will almost certainly have pics and videos of the damage

http://www.ksdk.com

http://www.kmov.com

Do a search for Trenton, IL and you'll get some idea of whats gone on !!

Mark

[shirlJ831 0]

glad your ok

[Kathryn41 3,205]

We had heard about the storms, but hearing from someone who has experienced the actual event sure brings it home. Thanks for sharing - so glad that you (and Harley:-) ) are well and survived unscathed.

[TracyTN 237]

Had wondered how you were doing after all that, Mark. Thanks for the update!

Poor brother Dean didn't fare as well.