Thursday, February 26, 2009

Coming in like a lion..

And it's not even March yet! These photos are from the tornado that touched down last Wednesday about 9 miles from my house. There were 10 reported tornadoes that touched down in Georgia and one person died. So I don't mess around when they say "Tornado Warning for Oglethorpe County" - this also has to do with the fact that I lived through a tornado in 1994 in Floyd County (where I grew up). Debbie (my pupper) and I were in the hall closet with our bike helmets on and yes we did look ridiculous ;). Dan was at a convention in Columbus, GA which is about 3 hours away so we were on our own.

I remember growing up and my mom pulling us out of bed and making us get in the hall with a mattress over our heads and sitting in the hallway at school with our heads tucked between our legs. Tornado warnings were a regular occurrence every spring and they always terrified me. It's one of the reasons I am now obsessed with the weather.

It really just broke my heart to see these huge, old trees lying on the ground. The house above had a backyard full of downed, large pecan and oak trees. They also had a glass sun porch that was shattered to bits and were missing quite a few shingles from their roof. I'm certain they feel lucky that their house is still standing. There was also some sort of shed in their backyard that didn't fair nearly as well.
This poor tree was HUGE. If I had to guess I would have said it was well over 200 years old and sadly it didn't make it through a direct hit from an F1 twister. There was also an F5 (the strongest recording on the fujita scale with winds up to 318 mph) tornado that briefly touched down in the next county over and completely demolished a home. Luckily they had a storm shelter under ground so the entire family survived. Scary stuff!
Get your bike helmets on folks and hang on - spring is on the way!

3 comments:

  1. Thank goodness you are ok!That is a little too close to home for me :) We don't get tornado warnings up here to often. We had one last summer and scared the crap out of everyone. There was a little one that formed close to the water and didn't do too much damage and then went out over the water. That was too close for me. I hope you have a wonderful and safe spring! :)

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  2. Thanks! I'm glad we're ok too - I worry more about my animals outside than I do us inside but yes 9 miles is waaaayyyy too close for comfort! And consider yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with tornadoes very often! I don't know how folks in Kanasas and Oklahoma deal with this all the time!

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  3. Tornado season already! I have a feeling that it's going to be a wild one too. I have a hard hat. I'll have to put it in my bathroom closet, just in case. I guess Althea will have to wear a turtle shell helmet.

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