First, some immediate news about the wonderful weather we are having here in the upper mid-west. If I had an Auntie Em, I would have been yelling her name over the past few days. :o) To make a very long few days of story very short, we had 6 tornado's within a 40 mile radius around B-town and one that hit the west side of our fair city, destroying a trailer park (surprise!) and it appears to have skipped along the tops of the trees in our neighborhood, not actually touching the ground but ripping up enormous trees and throwing them around like sticks. Of course we were in our basement for the excitement watching the American Idol finale (Lauren was robbed!). The power went out the second after they announced the winner (right after I heard that wind that sounds like a train. Auntie Em!!!). That is when we knew something outside wasn't very good. The paper the next day said we had winds between 80-115 mph. We have had power companies and tree removal guys from other cities and states here for the last 48 hours helping to put things back together for us. We just had our power restored about 2 hours ago after a 36 hour outage. Here are some of the amazing photos of what our neighborhood looks like:
This enormous maple tree fell on the street behind our house blocking the street. The children who live in the house where the tree belongs had stuck a sign to the tree to let the guys who will remove it know that there is a family of raccoons who live inside the tree and to please not hurt them. A very sweet human gesture during a very trying time.
This tree slammed into an apartment house, ripping one side of it away. No one was hurt. This was 4 blocks from our house.
This guy was in his car driving when this beauty came down on him. Luckily he was not hurt. I bet he had one stiff drink when he got home! Hell, I've had three just looking at the picture! This was 1/2 block away from our house.
Ouch! Another street blocked by a fallen tree. We had two rounds of storms, the first one on Monday night the 23rd and the second one on Wednesday the 25th. It was impossible to go anywhere in our neighborhood for quite some time from Tuesday morning right on through today, the 27th. And, they are still cutting up trees, removing debris and trying to restore power to many who are still in the dark.
This MONSTER tree fell on a road going through the IU campus. The campus had dozens of very old majestic trees fall in a wide area. Many fell against old limestone buildings and blocked roadways making it extremely difficult to get through campus.
This is one of our favorite houses in our neighborhood, just around the corner from us. No, that tree is not supposed to be laying on it.
OK, so this is the scariest one we came across. Look at the size of this tree!!!! When we saw it we knew what was on the other end of it just couldn't be good..........
Here it what that monster had fallen into! It sliced this apartment house clean in half!!! It was a miracle that no one was killed! This is about 4 blocks from our house.
This is the mess 3 blocks from us on 1st street. This street is a main thoroughfare, but not today.
Ouch again!
This poor guy is trying to figure out how he is going to get his gold SUV our from under this tree. Can you say 'chainsaw' Mr.?
This house had it's front porch knocked away.
We are so thankful no one was killed during all of this. Our neighborhood suffered most of the damage except for the trailer park on the west side that was completely destroyed.
All of this was quite exciting for my dad who has been here visiting for the last 2 weeks. He has definitely had his Wizard of Oz experience on this visit, as we all have.
AUNTIE EM!!!!! AUNTIE EM!!!!! ...........
Next post, the construction we have been doing while dad was here.
