Thurs. Aug. 8, 2013 - Tornado!

 Pieces of facia were tangled in bushes and wrapped around trees

 Our yard was littered with shingles from our roof

We lost shingles on the front

and back of the house

Picking up the pieces

 2 of our neighbors' pine trees fell into our yard

It just missed my garden beds

The top of our giant pine tree was pulled off and deposited in the front yard

 Too bad its not December, it would have been a nice Christmas tree

 Look at all those green cherry tomatoes thrown into the landscaping

 Lots of our flowers look like this now

 Everyone had to help with the clean up

 That's a shingle in our tree

 The poor birds did not fair well

 The stop sign on our corner is no longer straight

 Lots of down fences

 Look at all those apples!

 This is the nursery near our neighborhood where I like to shop

 At the end of our street our neighbor had 2 massive pine trees uprooted

Another tree pulled up from the roots

Our generator was put to very good use for 36 hours

Around 12:45 am on Wednesday August 7 Chad and I both woke to a storm. There was terrible thunder and lightning and a loud roaring sound. Chad and I both asked, "What in the world is that noise?" We'd never heard anything like it before. The house started shaking and we heard more strange noises on the roof. We were disoriented and really didn't know what was going on. Both girls were crying so we ran into their rooms and grabbed them. By the time we had them in our arms the shaking and roaring noise had ended but the thunder and lightning lasted so we huddled in our bed together for comfort. We had no idea an EF1 tornado with winds 100-110 mph had just passed by our house. When we went to bed the skies were clear, although there was a thunderstorm watch. Tornadoes are rare this far north so it wasn't something we were concerned about. The tornado sirens never went off, something we find very disappointing in hindsight. 

We lost power so I cuddled with the girls while Chad started up the generator. I admit, I thought he was a little crazy when he said we needed a generator and had some of the necessities (sump pump, stove, fridge and TV [yes, this is a necessity if you are housebound with no power]) hardwired into a circuit so they could be easily powered. We were without power for 36 hours so I now hail his decision as genius. Many of our neighbors also had generators and everyone was very generous about sharing power. Our neighbor Frank ran an extension cord to our generator to keep his refrigerator/freezer cold. Frank helped snow blow our driveway several times while Chad was out of town so it felt particularly good to be able to help him.

In the morning I was shocked at the destruction in our neighborhood. Almost every house lost at least 1 tree, sometimes hitting the house as they went down. One garage door was completely blown out. Fences were down and we saw a shed that had been rolled onto its roof. We lost plants and large branches but the biggest damage was done to our roof. Shingles were pulled off all over our roof and thrown into our yard. We've already hired a contractor who tarped the roof until an adjustor can come and survey the damage. I've been assured that the State Farm Catastrophe team is on their way.

Once again we have seen how amazing our neighbors are. First thing in the morning everyone came out of their houses to check on each other. They shared chainsaws, generators and manpower to help with clean up. I'm so thankful that we were all safe and the damage wasn't worse than it was. I really can't fathom what a bigger, stronger tornado is like. It was disappointing to wake up and see trees down and shingles all over; I can't imagine waking up to nothing at all. We are very lucky.