Tornado Stories

Some information about what happened to us and to our friends yesterday . . .

Our girls were sitting at the kitchen table, eating some apple slices, and Greg was going in and out, grilling leftover prime rib, when our weather radio went off. We shushed the girls to listen to the broadcast, which said that we were under a tornado warning, with severe weather to the far north and far west of us.

We looked at each other and then silenced the radio. I ran upstairs to get on the computer in our bedroom, so I could see the radar and tell whether stuff was coming our way. As the computer booted up, I looked out the side window of our bedroom and saw clouds in the not-very-far-away distance, black and rotating.

I ran downstairs, yelling to Greg, who was now sitting at the kitchen table with the girls, to come outside now to see the clouds. We both saw the formation of the tornado.

I ran back in and grabbed Julia from the table, where she was screaming because everyone had gone outside. I pulled Allie with me and we went downstairs to the basement. Greg stayed outside.

I booted up the computer downstairs and tried to get a weather radar up, and turned on the TV. Just then, the cable went out and both girls started crying because they were so scared and because the TV was turned up really loud (it made a static noise).

Our lights flickered a couple of times but we couldn't hear anything happening. The online connection on the computer didn't work because we have a cable modem. The girls and I stayed downstairs for perhaps 5 minutes while Greg stayed outside, taking the video you see on the main site.

When I couldn't stand not knowing any more what was happening, I went upstairs with both girls--there was no way they were going to stay downstairs without me. By then, the tornado had moved probably a mile or so to the east and was clearly not going to hit us.

Greg had watched it go behind our water tower from west to east, which meant it was at least 1/2 mile away, but we didn't know how far exactly. It turns out it was about 1 mile away or so--an F3 tornado with winds estimated at 200 miles per hour. The path of severe destruction is 1/2 mile wide. This thing looked huge. Greg's video doesn't do it justice. The news tonight said it was Wisconsin's strongest tornado in the last decade.

One man died in his basement when his chimney fell on him, so sad. The saddest story that touched us personally was about our friends, Betsy and Chris. They lost their house, their beautiful 1 1/2 yr. old all brick, three-car garage, inground pool, screened-in porch home on the golf course.

The garage is gone, the bricks (that they agonized over the choosing the color of) are stripped off, the second story is gone, the roof on the screened in porch extension fell straight down, and the pool is, of course, full of debris. Some of the walls of the first floor are still standing, but the house is completely ruined. Most of it that didn't blow away fell into the basement, where Chris was sheltering with their two girls who are 5 and 3.

Betsy had gone to play in a softball game, which means that this morning all she owned was her game t-shirt, shorts, and cleats. Chris saw the tornado coming across the golf course and took the girls to the basement. They just got there and hunkered down when the tornado hit and the house fell apart.

After the noise stopped, Chris managed to find a way out--he doesn't remember anything about how except that he carried both girls and kicked things out of the way with his bare feet (he hadn't been wearing shoes in the house). They had to get out immediately because of the strong smell of gas.

They started walking towards Betsy's parents house, which is about 2 blocks away, out of the path of major damage, and someone gave them a ride there. In the meantime, Betsy's brother, Dan, came running from his house, which is about 2 blocks in the other direction. He saw Chris's wallet in the car, which was now in the driveway, more or less, instead of in the garage, and knew that Chris and the girls had been home.

Dan had the presence of mind to turn off the gas (and he knew how to do it, heroic guy) and he eventually figured out where they had gone. Shortly after Dan left, Betsy arrived at the house with a couple of other people. You used to be able to see the house from about 1/2 mile away as you drove in, and Betsy could tell that the house wasn't really there anymore.

She got to what was left of the house and things were dead silent. The three of them spent what had to be an agonizing 15 minutes or so calling Chris's and the girls' names, trying to figure out if anyone was still in the house, before they found out where Chris and the girls had gone. Can you imagine how Betsy felt for that time? It makes tears come to my eyes.

They're all OK, at least physically. Erin, the 3 year old, asked for a nookie last night when she got tired enough to sleep, and Betsy's family managed to find one for her. The family didn't have anything to call their own until this morning, when they bought some basic supplies. That is, except an exceptional family support network that will get them through this.

Another friend and co-worker was driving and ended up just south of the tornado when it cut across the highway. She ended up lying in a muddy ditch while it passed, next to a man and a woman who was sobbing hysterically. They're all OK.

Two cars had a t-bone accident right in front of her, right before she went into the ditch, and I haven't heard that those people were injured too severely. There are 4 people hospitalized, one in serious condition.

Another co-worker had an aunt and uncle whose house was destroyed. Her cousin was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom before she ran to the basement and she ended up outside after the tornado passed wearing only a silk nightie. As of last night, she still didn't know where her car had ended up. It was gone.

It could have been much, much worse, really--small consolation to those who lost everything. If it had come 1 mile further south, into our town proper, there probably would have been multiple deaths and millions more dollars in damage. We're just giving thanks that things are OK for us. We were lucky, really lucky.

Allie asked what would happen if a tornado came again. I told her that tornados don't come very often at all, and now that one came close to us, it will be a long, long time before we see another one. I pray that that's correct.