Our Story begins on or around the weekend of April 23, when I mention to my husband that I would totally be interested in taking the kids down to see the shuttle launch on April 29 (at least I think it was scheduled for April 29th at that time - either way, the second to last shuttle launch.) My husband places a call to friends to get tickets onto Kennedy SC - the response is, jokingly, "Waiting until the last minute are we? Let me look into it and I'll call you back." We go about our busy lives, not really thinking anything about it. After all, if we get the tickets, great. If we don't, we won't have to worry about ballet recital rehersal, baseball games, school absence, etc.
Fast forward to Wednesday, April 27 - in which, my home state of Alabama undergoes a Torndado Emergency. We were woken up at 5:59 am to our weather radio warning us of (the first of many) a tornado in our county. 4 tornadoes pass within miles of our house that day. We watch helplessly as one by one, cities and towns filled with friends and loved ones are obliterated by tornadoes. We are in our storm shelter from roughly 1pm (after seeking shelter at my son's school from 11 am to 12:30) to around midnight. Our power goes out at around 4:30.
We emerge at midnight to find there has been ZERO damage to our home and neighborhood. But all 4 of us lay in our bed in the darkness listening with headphones (so as not to wake the kids) to the local radio stations as they begin to receive damage reports. Northern parts of our county - Gone. Whole towns in counties south of us - Gone. Already 4 people dead in our county. A friend whose husband is in law enforcement in a neighboring county texts me and asks me to pray for her husband who is helping to load 20 bodies found in a field, into emergency response vehicles. He has told his wife he is already breaking down - this from a man who many days never even calls home until way after the scary parts of his job are done. I frantically text, call and Facebook all of our friends in affected areas. Miraculously, no one we know was killed and very few were hurt! Praise God!!!!! Finally, around 2 am, my husband and I turn off the radio and go to sleep.
We wake up at 5:45 to my dad calling my cell phone. My dad works for our local utility company. He tells us the power situation is bad - possibly 10 days with no power. He suggests that we get out of town and take my mom with us (my mom later decides to head to the beach with my sister rather than to Cape Canaveral with us.) In shock, not knowing what was going on really, we pack, load up the truck, the dog, the cat. There are rumors more severe storms will hit over the weekend (thankfully, those predictions were untrue!!!) We clean out our fridge and freezer completely - no power for 10 days = no good for cold foods! We give our neighbors who have decided to stay everything we can - our weather radio, battery powered radios, extra propane tanks for the grill, keys to the house, etc.
We hit the road not knowing where we are headed. The sky was eerily blue:
At this point we weren't even sure which roads were clear. We drove about 70 miles before finding a gas station with power. The lines were miles long:
We decide to head south towards my in laws vacation condo in Sarasota. We call my inlaws and leave a message at their home in Chicago, to let them know we are headed that way. At almost the same moment we passed through Ringold, GA:
Damage in Ringold:
We got 2 phone calls. One from my inlaws telling us there was already someone staying in the condo for the weekend.
And one from our friend telling us he had secured us VIP seating tickets to the shuttle launch. We headed toward Cape Canaveral, calling a million hotels to see if we could find a place to stay.
Fast forward to Wednesday, April 27 - in which, my home state of Alabama undergoes a Torndado Emergency. We were woken up at 5:59 am to our weather radio warning us of (the first of many) a tornado in our county. 4 tornadoes pass within miles of our house that day. We watch helplessly as one by one, cities and towns filled with friends and loved ones are obliterated by tornadoes. We are in our storm shelter from roughly 1pm (after seeking shelter at my son's school from 11 am to 12:30) to around midnight. Our power goes out at around 4:30.
We emerge at midnight to find there has been ZERO damage to our home and neighborhood. But all 4 of us lay in our bed in the darkness listening with headphones (so as not to wake the kids) to the local radio stations as they begin to receive damage reports. Northern parts of our county - Gone. Whole towns in counties south of us - Gone. Already 4 people dead in our county. A friend whose husband is in law enforcement in a neighboring county texts me and asks me to pray for her husband who is helping to load 20 bodies found in a field, into emergency response vehicles. He has told his wife he is already breaking down - this from a man who many days never even calls home until way after the scary parts of his job are done. I frantically text, call and Facebook all of our friends in affected areas. Miraculously, no one we know was killed and very few were hurt! Praise God!!!!! Finally, around 2 am, my husband and I turn off the radio and go to sleep.
We wake up at 5:45 to my dad calling my cell phone. My dad works for our local utility company. He tells us the power situation is bad - possibly 10 days with no power. He suggests that we get out of town and take my mom with us (my mom later decides to head to the beach with my sister rather than to Cape Canaveral with us.) In shock, not knowing what was going on really, we pack, load up the truck, the dog, the cat. There are rumors more severe storms will hit over the weekend (thankfully, those predictions were untrue!!!) We clean out our fridge and freezer completely - no power for 10 days = no good for cold foods! We give our neighbors who have decided to stay everything we can - our weather radio, battery powered radios, extra propane tanks for the grill, keys to the house, etc.
We hit the road not knowing where we are headed. The sky was eerily blue:
At this point we weren't even sure which roads were clear. We drove about 70 miles before finding a gas station with power. The lines were miles long:
We decide to head south towards my in laws vacation condo in Sarasota. We call my inlaws and leave a message at their home in Chicago, to let them know we are headed that way. At almost the same moment we passed through Ringold, GA:
Damage in Ringold:
We got 2 phone calls. One from my inlaws telling us there was already someone staying in the condo for the weekend.
And one from our friend telling us he had secured us VIP seating tickets to the shuttle launch. We headed toward Cape Canaveral, calling a million hotels to see if we could find a place to stay.
