"Tormadoes"

This past Wednesday was the 2nd scariest day of my life. The other was when I had a gun pointed at my head as my friends and I were mugged leaving a Braves game; at least that was over with pretty quickly. Wednesday seemed to drag on forever.

We were awaken early Wednesday morning around 5:45 to a certain little boy needing to go potty. Jake will usually go back to sleep after that, but he insisted that morning on getting in bed with us. Around that time, some bad weather hit and the tornado sirens started going off, so I let him join us. I knew we were supposed to get bad weather, but I didn't take the sirens very seriously. The sirens continued to go off that morning at least 2 or 3 more times; I had no idea how bad the weather had been until we woke up and heard about it. Trees were down all over the city and power had been knocked out in several areas. Fortunately for us, we had no damage at our house, but several areas of the neighborhood were without power. Little did I know, things would only continue to get worse from there.

Wednesday is a school day for Jake, and I had actually signed Walker up to go that day so I could run some errands. Well, I received a text that morning saying the school was closed because a tree had fallen and was blocking the entrance to the school. Wednesday was going to be my first day to myself in a month (I've been filling in in Walker's class for the past month), and I was really disappointed to hear that they didn't have school. I decided to load them up and run to the grocery store before the weather got bad again because we were out of milk and needed a few other things. I was shocked once I got out and about...everything was closed! I couldn't even find anywhere to get gas! Target was open but had lost power, and I couldn't get any milk. So we got what we could and headed home.

Tyson was luckily in town that day (recruiting has begun) and had gone to the office as soon as the early morning tornadoes were over. After seeing the destruction from those tornadoes, I was pretty upset that I hadn't taken the sirens more seriously, and I knew that we still had some bad storms ahead that day. I kept insisting that Tyson come home early because I didn't want him stuck in traffic as the storms hit, and honestly, I was pretty shaken from what I had seen. Trying to get Tyson home early from work is nearly impossible, but by some Divine intervention, Tyson had a 2:15 appointment near our house with an oral surgeon. Thank goodness for that appointment because he was able to come home once it was over.

The weather actually wasn't terrible after the early morning storms, but Tyson and I decided to bring the boys in early from playing outside and feed and bathe them just in case. After that, the weather started to get bad. We went ahead and pulled out the flashlights and candles and set up our "safe place" just in case. Then, we decided to turn on the TV and see what was going on...that's when we saw the massive tornado hit Tuscaloosa. I immediately thought about our friend Mary Beth, whose husband is also a football coach, and I prayed she wasn't by herself having to endure this tornado with her 3 year old twins...by herself. I was literally worried sick to my stomach.

And then the tornado headed towards Birmingham. I have never felt so numb in my life knowing that thing was heading our way. I was so scared, but I couldn't let Jake see it, so we kept it together. Tyson and I started making plans about what all we would do if it came our way, but luckily for us and unfortunately for others, the tornado changed directions and headed north of the city. They kept showing video of the tornado and it was right by my hospital and the UAB campus.

We were definitely very lucky; we had no damage and never lost power. The city is a mess; trees are down, houses are destroyed, lives were lost. It is so sad. We didn't suffer the devastation that Tuscaloosa did though...I can't imagine.

We lost cell service throughout the night, and scared our parents to death, but luckily we were still able to communicate with our friends and family via the Internet. I'm pretty sure I will never take a tornado siren for granted again. And poor Jake was traumatized...he kept asking, "why does God send 'tormadoes?'" Break my heart. It's truly devastating over here.