Never a Dull Moment at the Halleys

Just wanted to let you see pictures of our somewhat evenful night. Amid the thunderstorms last night, a tornado of sorts blew in around 2:15 a.m. and cut a path through our neighborhood. The good news is that my cheap plastic green chairs are still safely on my deck!

I have been trying to find out for sure from the National Weather Service, but I have heard it was categorized as a microburst possibly. We are all safe, and the police told me in the middle of the night that no one was hurt. The girls were very scared and didn't sleep the rest of the night, considering it continued to storm until 5 a.m.

I snapped this picture of the sky when I was walking around the house this morning. It seems the atmosphere took a while to settle down.

You might be able to see the look of shock on Amberlea's face when we discovered the fate of the swing set. That isn't close to what her reaction was when she realized our trampoline was gone. This window is Amberlea's bedroom, and the air conditioner stopped the swing set from ramming into the side of our house.

So, what happened to the trampoline? It appears to have slammed into the north side of our house near the roof. There are blue and white fibers from the padding snagged on the torn siding, and the very top edge has a blue smear. You can see in these pictures. Oh yeah, nice gash too. This is Tye's bedroom, and he slept right through it.

Interesting thing, the trampoline was located in the middle of our backyard, which means it would have had to have traveled north about 25-30 feet to have cleared the back of our house and then came back south to slam into the north front corner.

We were luckier than our neighbors, as far a property damage. That is our trampoline net in their front yard. This is the house directly across from us.

And here is where our trampline ended up, in the creek. The springs and rods are strewn all over our yard in a path to this spot.

There was more damage on the next road over.

Note the trampoline in the lower part of this picture belongs to another neighbor.

This little excitement prompted a visit from the police and fire dept. Again, we were just glad to know that everyone is ok.

As for what exactly happened, I'm not sure. I knew it was raining. I woke to the house shaking terribly. It all happened kind of in a stand still feeling. About the time I was opening my eyes and realizing that it sounded like the roof was going to rip off the house, I heard this awful freight train noise...you know, the ones you hear about...yep, that is what it sounded like, with a high pitched whirling noise. About as fast as it started, the train noise was over and the whirling noise continued. I had sat up in bed and looked out the window in time for it to lightning, and I could see something large like a roof just blow away...like you see in the movies. There were loud pounding noises, and it all happened so fast. Amberlea came running in my room, and then she had her hands over her ears. She was breathing heavy and asking me...what is that noise? We ran to the bathroom and I grabbed Tye out of bed and put him on the bathroom floor. I ran down to get Rachel out of bed and got her up into the bathroom. Why I didn't take them all downstairs is baffling to me. I think I was just trying to get Amberlea to a safe place and to feel safe. Rachel hadn't heard a thing. I drug her upstairs to the bathroom. The whole time I was thinking that I knew this was over, I just was kind of doing whatever felt right.

The best part was it continued to storm for several hours, several times a lot of wind and rain, so I'm pretty sure the girls didn't sleep another wink. Amberlea talked my ear off all night about all of the 8th grade plays that she remembered (her heart was beating so fast that I think she was trying to occupy herself), and then she would throw in her theory on what causes tornadoes. It was nuts.

The girls were all a buzz this morning and tromped around outside with me to see what was going on. Thus, the pictures!

I figure maybe someday my life will quiet down.