Thankful and Grateful - The Storm of 2024

We are still digging out and cleaning up but we are so thankful and grateful that we are okay. I am a firm believer in it could always be worse. 

Thursday a freak unprecedented storm swept through my small community had my family and others running for cover, knocking down trees left and right, smashing through roofs, taking out all our power lines and devastating many. We were the lucky ones. 

I woke early to get to work as usual. My hours are from 7:30 but I tend to get there a half hour to an hour early because I hate jumping in the deep end of the pool when I first get to work. Wading in is better for my head and my soul. When I backed out of the driveway at 6:38 I took a photo of my house for my husband. He was asleep inside and the house looked beautiful. All the colors were amazing. Our Memorial Day flag was up, our normal flag was blowing, the trees were in full bloom, flowers so pink. It was just amazing.

At 7:15 I saw it getting really dark at work and went outside to watch this crazy rain storm sweep across the sky. I watched these crazy clouds start closing out any lightness. I called a co-worker to watch the storm with me. She told me there was too much lightening and I should head inside. At 7:20 I started walking into the building when I received a text from my daughter. “R U Okay?”

I turned away from coworkers and called her. “Mom we are having a tornado.” I can hear my husband’s voice it is shaky. They are telling me there is a lot of rain and to take cover because they were now getting hail. I told them to keep me in the loop and hung up telling a coworker t what I learned and to check on her family as we are both in the same town. 

Thankfully her family was okay. Mine started sending me pictures. That were devastating.

At 7:18 my husband was drinking his coffee looking out the living room window. He said the clouds were weird colors and stacked like a sandwich. The colors were odd and he remembers saying “that’s weird. Never saw anything like that before. Then the  wind started to kick up and spinning around the yard. All the trees were swaying, a very large tree from in front of us slammed down and he booked down the hallway telling me kids to get downstairs. My daughter had a friend over and she said as they were running down the stairs her friends fingers on hire shoulders were shaking. My husband was yelling, ,they had just opened their eyes to his banging on the door and all they heard was wind, hail and the thumping of trees and pole falling. 

I am so happy that my husband was working from home. If I was getting this message from her and the kids were alone I would have been freaking out. 

They got downstairs near our laundry room which is in the center of the house. 

I will forever be grateful, thankful and blessed that my family, house and the car was spared because my neighbors were not so lucky.

God is good! I was able to work my full day knowing he was with them.

My daughter sent me pictures throughout the day. The took forever to get to me and were poor quality due to WiFi but I got the gist. We were super lucky because it can always be worse and it was for so man

Nothing prepared me for what I saw when I finally got home. It took an hour. Usually it takes me 18 minutes. There were many road closures and still are depending on what they are working on. One road may be open in the morning but closed later so you need to give yourself a lot of time in case of that. 

Buses were hit with trees and trapped. People were taken by ATV home or to the school depending on the situation and thankfully no one was hurt! 

We are in a private community which means we are the responsibility of no township. We are part of a township but because we are not part of the village nor are we anywhere near the township we are part of no one is doing anything. In fact there is a community and a homeowner who were still trapped in their home until yesterday. Disgusting.

We are still cleaning up. My husband and my neighbors cut apart a massive tree that blocked our road with chainsaws, chains, a pick up truck and brute strength. My kids worked over the past few days like no one else each lifting over 1000 pounds of wood, logs and debris.

We are out over $1800 already because unless there is structural damage insurance covers nothing. 

They are saying microburst not tornado while others have confirmed a tornado. Whatever it was it was bad and we are still without cable/WiFi. We got our power back three days later but there are still generators running for the homes that had damage. We were lucky. It can always be worse. 

Spending time with my family over these past few days has been amazing. Everyone stepped up and worked hard. I am grateful! I am thankful! I am blessed!

 The first photo I got when my family opened the front door.

Some pictures I took when I got home