39. (storms!!)

wow! it has been crazy here. we were in the basement last night until 2am. we were watching the storm on the weather channel website's dopplar and ryan was convinced it was going to miss us. so i texted matt sumner! he called me back and said our area was going to get hit HARD. not 30sec. into the conversation the wind kicked up like you wouldnt believe, there was a sudden down poor, and thunder was booming. the wind was so loud we couldnt tell if we heard the tornado siren, so we checked the weather channel station, and sure enough, there was a severe tornado warning for our area, so i ran upstairs, and woke poor lana up, and we headed to the basement.

then today, we miscalculated the arrival of the storm, so lana and i were napping, and ryan was watching rambo. then the storm hit and the wind woke me up. i got up, looked outside, freaked out, put pants on and as soon as i was in the hall ryan yelled at me to get lana and go to the basement.
ryan watched the tornado form and start to touch down on mt.hope behind our neighborhood. the siren didnt even go on until it was pretty much completely calmed down! but while ryan was watching rambo, the wind knocked over one of the trees in our front yard. it BARELY (miracle from God) hit the house. and when i say barely, i mean it hit the very corner of the gutter and bent it slightly. thats IT. if it had fallen 4ft over, ryan would be in the hospital. he didnt even hear it fall.

so it passed, and we went upstairs, and the WHOLE neighborhood was surveying the damage. we got the worst damage in the neighborhood, but the a lot of trees on mt.hope are completely uprooted, and there is one house behind the neighborhood that had 2 or 3 trees fall on it. the westbound stretch of mt.hope past canal was completely closed off due to severe carnage, downed power lines shooting fire, and someone who died when their RV was flipped on top of them. there was a police chopper surveying the area for about an hour afterwards too.

so the other tree in our front yard is leaning towards the house. you can see at the bottom where the roots loosened in the ground, and the crown of the tree is severely cracked and super leaning towards the house. dan parked on the street in case the wind comes in north to south. im on storm watch duty because were supposed to get another huge storm tonight with random pockets of severe stormage. jim is having the insurance guy come out tomorrow to look at the (currently) standing tree because it will cost the insurance company a lot less to have it taken down than if it falls on the house.

i have to stay up pretty late to make sure nothing too crazy happens. after i watch iron chef america, im going to pack ryans lunch, and then i think im going to move some basic supplies to the basement, just in case. i might get super ambitious and rearrange some things in the basement then move lanas play pen down there and what not. i dunno.