twister

There was a tornado that passed through the front of our neighborhood Thursday night. Luckily it missed all the houses, but a bunch of trees were torn down and/or uprooted.

I was over at Olivia and Katherine's that night watching PS I Love You and Jonathan called to tell me not to drive home yet because there was a tornado warning in effect for the next half hour. We were all like, "Seriously?!" and checked the news and sure enough, there was a tornado warning! So we ran outside to see the lightning and then debated where the safest place in their building would be. Olivia suggested we all try to cram into their coat closet but they keep Mr. K's box in there and I was like, "No way do I want to die in a litterbox!"

I was supposed to drive Stephanie home but I am such a chickenshit I was terrified to drive. I am a pretty crummy driver even under the best of circumstances. I mean, how can you even see a tornado in the dark? I could drive right up into a big old funnelcloud and have no idea... Plus, to make matters even scarier, my cell phone had died, so I wouldn't even be able to make a good-bye phone call...

So Katherine drove Stephanie home, after they followed me into my neighborhood to make sure I made it home alive. (Little did I know I was driving them into the path of a tornado. Oops.)

So I made it home safely. J and I watched the local weather on the news until we lost our satellite signal. So then we went to bed, but I was seriously freaked out. I mean, there were just tornadoes in Virginia a few days ago. So it happens, you know? And we are surrounded by huge trees on all sides. And without our satellite (and then we lost electricity so we were also without a radio) how would we even know to go into the basement? J fell right asleep but I couldn't. The rain and wind was just too loud and I was way too anxious. Blue woke up in the night crying because her nightlight was out, so I went in there to be with her for a while.

In the morning, people kept calling and emailing to check on us (thanks for that, everybody, by the way) and we were a little confused. We were like, "Um, we're fine, thanks. How are you?" And then we turned on the morning news. They mentioned the road outside of our subdivision so we turned the tv way up and yelled at the kids to be quiet and tried to figure out where the news crews were filming. They were in front of our subdivision, but because all we saw on the screen were fallen trees and some asphalt we couldn't figure out where they were! I remember Jonathan saying, "Must be some other road with the same name up in Stafford or something" before we turned off the tv to take Blue to preschool.

And then we realized how close we had been to the action. And why everyone had been calling us.

Oh, my God, people. That's all we could both say for several minutes.  Oh, my God.

The storm went through the front of our neighborhood! The trees that line the front of our subdivision were torn out of the ground. The businesses beside our neighborhood suffered substantial damage. My friend Heather's mom and dad live in the next neighborhood over and a tree fell on their house!

I feel so incredibly lucky that our house, as well as the other homes in our neighborhood, were spared. I mean, without power, and not normally being in a tornado watch, how are we supposed to know it is even happening?! That is what scares me the most. That and the fact that the storm traveled literally right down the road I had driven home on at 11:30.