tornado! 4-16-11

it's been almost 6 months now, so i'm a bit behind on this blog. but i promise to work hard today and the next coming days to get this caught up! i've got a lot of pics to upload! we'll start back in april when a couple tornados touched down nearby. thankfully, none directly hit our area, but they were close! one formed about a mile away and touched down 2 miles from us. the other was about 5 miles away. yikes!

^ i took this pic while standing outside after the tornado had passed. it was so cool to see the lightning flashing one after another from the swirling vortex at the base of the cloud! truly awesome!




^ the glow of lightning in the cloud

^ the destruction the next day

^ lots of broken trees!

^ ooh, ouch! poor car!

^ a couple days after the tornado, i went to help with clean up in one of the harder hit areas. it was so horrible to see the devestation. i had to come back to help more, so shane joined me a couple days later.

^ there's just a foundation left here.

^ all the debris lined up along the road for pick up

^ shane's in white, trying to chop up and move that tree.

^ that was someone's home.

^ the site i worked to clear up the first day i went out to volunteer with clean up.