EF-1 Tornado!

We give all thanks to God that we are entirely unhurt from an EF-1 tornado with winds at 95 mph which we watched pass through our back yard thirty feet away, although my husband thinks it may well have passed directly over our home as we ran for cover. Who is to know for sure?

You can read the timeline of the storms in Charlotte here:
https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/live-blog-heavy-rain-moving-across-the-carolinas-flood-threat-high/275-9795f6d4-6d6a-41c9-8e1b-7d1dfb50dde5?fbclid=IwAR2NmJE71Hor924G9nTbCGl7OqFt2TZeocAd7lV3Wysl0X9i3FCpyPpk4hA

At noon Thursday, there was actually a lull in the storms that had been pouring all day, although, unbeknownst to me, warnings were out that the second round was coming. I had a 1:15 doctor's appointment and I had been planning to leave my 11-year-old home babysitting her napping baby brothers--for only the second time ever--because my husband was supposed to have left for a business road trip. However, last minute he said he'd delay his departure a couple of hours so he could watch everyone. (What if my 11-year-old had been home alone protecting preschoolers during this storm?!)

So, I was upstairs at 12:17 or so laying David down when my phone alerted a tornado warning. I was irked because it was going to be harder to get David back down for nap if I took us all downstairs. Sigh. Reluctantly I gathered all the children and walked us downstairs where we met in the kitchen to look out the window of our glass sun room. Was it really bad? Was a tornado coming?

The tornado hit at 12:19. We were standing there when the wind went from fairly calm to whipping up and a white wall was seen coming through the woods. At some point amidst time that seemed to stand still, we realized our 13-year-old was still outside by himself and somehow we got him indoors: later he explained that he had seen dark clouds coming straight toward us faster than he'd ever thought possible, so he ran indoors. All within seconds, we could hear the characteristic train sound of the tornado, like one hears in the movies, and a massive oak tree cracked apart and began falling toward us in the glass room while the lights went out in the house as our power was cut off.

We all began screaming and ran. Chris and I were grabbing up tiny children and dragging them. Our two housecleaning ladies were also in the home, so the four adults and six children all crammed into our downstairs powder room in the dark, with a number of us crying.

I don't even know how long it lasted.

Because our neighborhood homes are brick, we were spared the devastation that some neighborhoods experience from tornadoes. Our neighborhood looks like a war zone with hundreds of massive trees down, roads impassable, some homes partially smashed (but still livable), some cars crushed. The night of the tornado there was flooding and we listened to emergency vehicle sirens around us for hours. Those emergency workers are so brave.

We decided to go to a hotel for the night where we later prayed a rosary of thanksgiving and then enjoyed an ice cream party. I was moved again to tearfulness when I watched all my children breathing quietly in their hotel beds, perfectly safe.

Overnight, several children and I experienced nightmares about houses. It was a night of many wakings in our hotel room.

We are back in the house today, still without power, but otherwise happily puttering around. Our small generator is charging phones and computers. It is warm enough in the 40s outdoors that we are still comfortable indoors. We spent time today picking up detritus in the front yard, which is safe, but not in the back yard, which is unsafe. We are going to have to have about 8 huge trees (50- to 75-feet high) taken down, none of it covered by insurance. A lot of trees had their root systems snapped and are now leaning precariously. We will also have the roof inspected. Much work will be done in coming days.

We are exceedingly grateful and given much deep meditation about what is important in life and what is not.

Photos from around our neighborhood: