Weather

Robbie was out of town this weekend & my parents are watching Jake this week because I have to fly out of town for business. So, I figured I would go ahead & take Jake to my parent's this weekend & spend some time with them. My parent's live in a small community called Pine Level which is a few miles north of Prattville, AL. There had been warnings of bad weather all Friday evening. We would be under one tornado warning & about the time that one ended, we would have another one. I don't freak out about bad weather & I've never gone to a safe place when under a tornado warning. I've always had the naive thought of nothing bad is going to really happen to me. We all went to bed around 10:30 thinking that the worst was over. Around midnight the power went out, I could tell there was another storm. I just figured that the wind was blowing super hard. I got up & checked on Jake (in one of the other bedrooms) & he of course was sleeping right through it. So I went back to bed. After the storm seemed to die down, my dad took the trail wagon out to just check on the property. That's when he realized that something worse had happened then just a wind storm. In the morning, we all went out to examine the damage in daylight. It was horrible. Thankfully, the tornado turned and just skirted the back my parent's property, so they had no damage. But other's in the community were not as lucky. A very sweet family that I've known all my life, lost 3 members of the family. The church that I went to as a little girl was destroyed (we changed churches when I was in the 6th grade). Houses a few miles down from my parent's had trees fall on them. It was spooky to see the path of the tornado. All of the trees were either up-rooted or snapped in half. There was metal stuck high up in the trees. It completely freaked me out. I get an F in parenting for not having my child in a safe place. The electricity went out, so we had no idea that a tornado had touched down. I learned some very important things. 1) Invest in a weather radio; 2) Even if you are in a house or brick structure, you are still not completely safe (see the pictures below of what the storm did to the brick church; 3) You should get in a safe place in your house if you are in a tornado warning (if the tornado had not turned, it could have very easily hit my parent's house); 4) It can happen to you (I knew the 3 people that lost their lives). I will definitely take weather warnings a lot more seriously now.

I do ask that you keep all of the families affected by this storm (including those in the other states) in your prayers. While sometimes I may kid around about growing up in such a small community & I haven't lived there since high school, but to see how they are rallying around everyone is so touching. The community is one, that you know the people that you go to high school with your whole life. My dad went to high school with their parents and my grandparents went to high school with their grandparents. And when something bad happens, they all come together. It is like a family. And when there is so much heartbreak and sadness, it is a ray of sunlight & a reminder, that there is still good and there is still love. I am proud of the community and I'm proud that I was raised in such a special place.