Don't worry...everyone here is okay.

So, we had a bit of a scary day around these parts yesterday! I had just started tutoring a girl from church in biology when our friendly local weatherman came on and said that a tornado warning was being issued for our county. Then he said the location of the tornado and, well, it was a little too close for comfort! Especially when the tornado sirens went off.

Now, I will say that last year a tornado was in a town a good 30 miles from us and they sounded the sirens, so now we're all a little skeptical when they sound those horns....a bit of the "Boy Who Cried Tornado" syndrome, I guess. But when they showed the map of the storm, we decided to load up Johnny's grandma, the baby, the dog and Leah into the car and head over to Johnny's mom's house, who has a storm shelter in her garage.

We got to the main street by our neighborhood and school buses were pulled over right and left. Is that a law? If the sirens go off, buses have to pull over? What's that all about? Johnny said maybe the kids were expected to hop off the bus and tip it over and hide under it...."alright, first graders...on the count of three....HEAVE!" So that was a bit confusing. But on the way, we could see the lowering (what turned out to be the remnants of the tornado) a few miles north of our neighborhood! Now, I've never seen a tornado that wasn't just on the news, which is a bit shocking, considering I've lived in Oklahoma my entire life! So to see the lowering was pretty cool. A little intense, but cool.

So we made it over to Johnny's mom's house and the storm was over. No more tornado. Which was good. But then they started showing damage from the tornado and we finally realized just how close it was to us! Just a couple miles away were houses that were severely destroyed! Giant electric towers (the ones that look like the Eiffel Tower, not the measly little poles) were either twisted and gnarled or completely knocked down!

All that happened to us was we lost power for a few seconds about 5 minutes before the sirens went off. Thank the Lord that He was watching over us! But I have to wonder why there was really NO warning. Why didn't they sound the sirens sooner? Why did Mike Morgan wait until the last minute to tell us that a tornado was in the area? With all the technology they so readily brag about on all the news channels, what happened?

I don't know, and I guess I don't need to know. Just trust in the Lord and thank Him for protecting us. Because if I had known just how close the tornado was, I wouldn't have been so calm! And I might just have caused my hair to go prematurely gray. And nobody wants to see that! :)

So...we're okay. No damage, no injuries. Whew! That was close!