That was closer than we thought...

So we had quite a scare on Friday. We knew severe storms were supposed to come by Friday night, so we went out to Chic-fil-a, which just opened a new location closer to us. We got our food to go knowing we didn't want to be out when the storms came. On the way home, we could see the sky was darkening and the rain started. Then we got home and turned the TV on, just in time to hear the weathermen talking about grapefruit-sized hail about 15 miles to our west. My Mom called and warned us and we said yes, we don't like the looks of this so we headed to the basement. A little while later they started reporting a tornado in a little town to our west called New Melle. As we watched the expected track of the storm, we realized that it would come right over us. As we continued to watch the weather, they kept talking about how they were getting the strongest indication they'd ever gotten that there was a tornado in that storm. We said a prayer as a family and continued to watch the radar. It wasn't too long before the worst of the radar image was on top of us, so we hunkered down with the kids in the corner. They seemed pretty scared, so we started singing Church songs to distract them. It worked pretty well for them and us.

After a few minutes we couldn't hear the rain anymore and we started to hear the TV saying something about the airport. It looked like the worst had passed us by then. A few minutes later they started reporting a tornado at the airport. That pretty much took all of the media's attention. The mayor, the county executive, and top airport officials started to head back to the airport for an evening press conference. In case you haven't heard, the airport was closed for a while. They say they're back to 70% now.

So we decided to check on the track of the tornado now that damage reports were in and helicopters could get aerial shots of the damage. The first picture shows a line from New Melle to the airport. I've marked our home and Tom's work. We didn't realize just how close we were to that line. The tornado must have been off the ground while passing over us, then set back down just across the Missouri River.

This picture down here is the actual damage track in the metro area. Tom hasn't heard about any work damage, but I guess we'll find out on Monday. Still, that is awfully close, wasn't it? We feel very blessed that we were watched over Friday night. Overall, it is pretty amazing that there have been no deaths reported from this storm. There were lots of people in their church buildings for Good Friday services, but they all came out ok. Just under 3,000 buildings have been damaged. We are counting our blessings.