Over 300 Tornadoes!

some of the damage we saw on the way to Florence



One of the tornadoes came across Hwy 157




Hooking the generator up to the refrig and freezer



April 27, 2011 was one of the most scariest days of my life!  It started at 4:00 am and didn't end until 8:00 pm.  The storms came in waves and each time got worse.  We were glued to the TV all day where they would tell us where each tornado was and if it had touched down.  I had signed up the day before for " Weather Call" where the TV station will call you if a tornado has been sited in the area of our address. We got called at least ten times during that day.   The first time I loaded the kitties up in their carriers and took them to the basement was the first real scare for the day.  It was heading right for Five Points ( our area).  I was in the safe room with the two steel doors closed and locked with Marmalade yowling...there wasn't a peep out of Annabelle.  (Chuck had gone off to the Forest to see how high the Sipsey had risen.....I KNOW!!!!  I'm not even going to write about that because I'm trying to forget that he went and left me all alone)  I stayed in the safe room for about ten minutes before coming back upstairs to see what the TV had said.  ( my cell phone nor the radio works under ground)  It got to be unreal how they where saying that one touched down in Cullman, one went across Hwy 157, one here, one there.  The poor weathermen, couldn't keep up with all of them.  In fact, one hit and wiped out the house of one of the weathermen, in Mt. Hope. He went home after being at the station for so long.  He got hurt but he's going to be OK.  When they said it was going to last into the night, I thought of our dear friend, Andrea who's husband is out of town and they don't have a storm shelter.  I called and asked her and her son to please come and stay with us during the rest of the storms.  We had lost power by then and Chuck made us all a " no power dinner on the camp stove".  We actually passed time on the back porch since it was getting dark in the house.  I dug out the Scrabble Game and that helped keep our minds off of things.  Since all we had was my radio ( that runs on batteries) and our cell phones weren't working all the time but I could still get "texts", I had asked the BNOE to please text me if we needed to go to the basement.  Raimey had hooked up their little TV to a car battery so they were still watching where the tornadoes were headed.  I got a text from Charlotte saying " GO TO THE BASEMENT NOW!!!"  We all ran into the house.  Andrea grabbed Annabelle, me Marmalade and we poked them in their carriers and down we went.  Chuck had put a nice piece of left over carpet from the house on the floor so we all sat on the floor.  We got another text from Charlotte saying that it went north of us and that we could come out.  By this time, we only had one more round of storms to get through.  We all held our breaths and we made it through it all.  We had no idea how bad all the damage was or how many deaths there were, so close around us.  I don't think anyone did for awhile.  Chuck got our little battery TV and charged it in the Explorer so we could use it for a couple of hours at a time.  That's when we realized how awful it all was and how lucky we were.   The only thing we lost was power and everything in our freezer and the refrigerator.  That was " nothing".   Raimey's Dad came every day with his generator and hooked our freezer and refrigerator up for about an hour, trying to save it all.  It didn't work.  Things would thaw out and then refreeze.....not good.  We did save some food by grabbing the coolers from the barn and using the bags of ice we had in the freezer.  Remember, we had 6 weeks of practice with " no power" when we moved up here, so we were OK with it all.  We didn't have very much gas in either the Explorer or the truck and we knew we were going to need ice and more food.  The BNOE had gone to Florence ( 35 miles away) on Thursday because the power was on over there.   We did the same on Friday and stocked up on what we needed.   Charlotte and I even watched the " Royal Wedding" with their TV hooked up to the car battery...lol.  I got up at 3:15 am and walked over to their house in the dark....but boy or boy...were the stars ever bright!!!! We even had " tea, scones and pear bread" to celebrate with the Royals.  Just as Kate and William said " I DO"...the TV flat lined...the battery ran dead....LOL.  At least we got to see most of it.  I think I was just as happy to have the power come back on ( Saturday night at 10:30 pm) as I was to get it hooked up in the TT the first time.  I told Chuck, at least this time, we had running water and a toilet that flushed.  Every day I remind myself how grateful we are to still have our beautiful new house with all the trees still around it and that we are alive.  Many are not.   ....it was the worse tornado outbreak in Alabama History.  No one up here will ever forget it.