April Showers

As I type this I am listening to a weather report, which is a warning of dangerous thunderstorms on the way.  The storms have already caused numerous tornadoes in Kansas and other areas west of here, but it is believed the storms will not be as bad here.  Listening to this report has brought back some rather unpleasant memories for me.  Last year, around this time, I experienced my second close call with a tornado.  Fortunately, my house sustained no damage during that storm.  A tornado did, however, touch down near my house.

I've also watched from a closet under a staircase as a tornado tore part of the roof off our house and sent our patio furniture flying.  We found it 3 houses down the road.  Perhaps more frightening than the flying furniture was the hail that hit before the tornado.  It was the size of softballs.  After it passed, we went outside to survey the damage.  Apart from roof damage and trees being down, our neighborhood had fared rather well.  Turns out that the tornado had not yet touched down when it passed over our house.  It did touch down east of us, destroying a neighborhood and a grocery store, killing one person.  We were lucky.

Here's hoping we don't have a repeat performance of last year's crazy weather...Not only did we have several huge tornadoes, but also massive flooding!  That was a bigger problem here where I live.  I live near a creek and a low lying swamp area.  It's beautiful, but when it rains, it can get dicey.

Best of luck to all who are facing the bad weather today!