Giving away my AO here, I am in the the fascist state of Illinois. This past Sunday there were a couple of pretty nasty tornado’s that past through our AO and left a large number of people without homes. Interestingly Sunday morning started out pretty nice for November but by late morning, the day degenerated into torrential down pours, very high winds, hail, sunshine, more rain, and more high winds and then sun again. My yard looked like we had a light snow after one iteration of storms that came through, but that look came about after 15 minutes of hail. No roof or vehicle damage, thank goodness!
Our place was spared the brunt of the worst weather, but WF’s step brother and his family lost their entire home and everything in it. Their Chevy Suburban? to say it looked like someone took a baseball bat to it is an understatement. It was crushed and all the windows are gone. I mean crushed. The cabin support pillars are crushed! below is a pic.
This is what is left of their house. And in the rubble? He found his flag and struck it dead center of what used to be his living room.
As the storm was rolling away
As you can see total loss. There is not much one can prepare for in tornado alley. Even if you have a basement to retreat to there isn’t much to go back to when the storm is passed and you climb the basement steps back to ground level. Generator? gone, food preps? gone, gonna grab that bug out bag? You car/truck is gone! WF’s step brothers family all survived and no one was hurt. But they lost everything. I don’t think any amount of prepping would have changed the out come of this event.
An aftermath observation.
One of my co-workers relayed a story he experienced after the storm traveled through his area. I quote ” I went to the gas station, and there was a line out into the street, people were filling up their cars, gas cans and generators……….” The non nonchalant/casual way he described this was like that scene was normal. I wanted to say something to him for not looking at it as this is what people do in when they don’t keep a minimum half tank of fuel in the vehicle, or spare gas for their generators, but knew my comments would fall on deaf ears.
And those filling up gas cans and generators? Stupid! I know I am coming off as callous but jezzz, seriously? My life lesson after all this? more resolve in continuing my preparations. Rain or shine.
Ad Parare 