Crazy OK Weather!

First of all, only by God's true saving Grace, we are all fine and so is our house. --->Some of our neighbors weren't as lucky. Yesterday (2/10/09) OK had its first tornado of the year. Where did it happen to go? Through our neighborhood, again. Our house is just fine. A friend of mine who has lived in OK her entire life says we should move. She's never had a close call.

Brent has a few fence posts to dig and replace and he found 1 shingle that half of it was missing. It happened around 2:30 or 3pm. Yesterday was the first time Rachel went home with a friend after school. The storm appeared to be heading right toward the friends house. Brent was out but stopped at home to let the dogs inside. Then he headed off to get Rachel. As he was driving, there was a major downpour of hail and the tornado sirens started going off. He was looking all around as he was driving (the best he could through the hail as it slammed the windshield and side of the van) and he saw what appeared to be a "wall cloud". Usually "wall cloud" + hail + sirens = tornado. He never saw any rotation in the clouds or felt in immediate danger so he kept driving and made it to our friends house where Rachel was. Little did we know that the storm was headed right to our neighborhood. For those that may not recall last year Edmond had a tornado that took down the power lines in the front of our neighborhood. While there, they watched the news radar and saw there was another wave coming right toward them. This time golfball sized hail slammed the house but they never saw or heard a tornado. When it looked like they'd have about 15 minutes of clearing before the next wave they hustled into the van and started home. On the way home they got close to the neighborhood and started seeing very large tree limbs scattered all about and even some big trees uprooted. Brent thought "at least the power lines are still standing this time (they replaced the old wooden poles with the newer metal poles). As he drove into the neighborhood he started noticing the amount of shingles missing from many houses. Then he noticed random garage doors blown in. As he turned down our block there were several houses with roof damage but nothing really to 'gasp' about...until he turned the corner at the end of our block. He was on the phone with me as he was driving and there was sudden silence. I asked what was wrong and he could barely talk as he tried to explain to me there was a house right in front of him with a firetruck in the front of it that was 1/2 gone! As he pulled closer he saw the other houses on the opposite side of the street with major structural damage and the firefighters going door -to - door making sure there were no immediate rescues needed. Houses all around have windows blown out, fences missing entirely and pieces of wood that pierced the roofs. A trampoline was in the front yard of one and a solid wood play structure was in a tree in the front yard of another. All this just 1 block north of our house...and we only have a couple fence posts to replace. Also with God's Grace, not only were there no deaths, there were no injuries! Amazing! Brent went out this morning and took pictures of the damage. I have attached a video of the worst house. Times like these are good reminders of what is important in life. Hopefully the next post wont be quite as exciting. All praise of thanksgiving goes out to God for His protective Hand over us!