May 19th ended up being a pretty eventful day for us! The news had been stating all day to expect some pretty bad storms in the afternoon. With Hadley's dance recital at 2:00 we were a little scared we could be in the middle of it but were really only worried about hail damage on the cars since we would all be inside a big, safe auditorium. By noon it appeared we would be just fine and the storms would be starting well after her performance. So at 4:00 she finished up and we were out in the lobby taking pictures when we noticed the sky was looking a little dark and we may want to head home.
At home, we turned on the news and within minutes tornados were forming and seemed to be heading right towards us. We got what we needed in our shelter and the kids watched a movie in one room so that we could watch the tv and out the front door in the other room. It got really dark but skirted by us and hit many more areas of Edmond. Thankfully, they were not huge tornados, no one was hurt, and nothing hit us. We went on with our afternoon but kept then news on as more severe weather was forming.
We soon started watching another tornado as we heard it was approaching the Shawnee area. Within the next 30 minutes it was obvious it was going right for our lake house. It was a gut-wrenching feeling to hear the weathermen say, "the tornado is sucking the water right out of the lake and it is now headed toward the the northeast corner of the lake. Unfortunately, we are far Northeast as you can get on the lake. My parents who had come over to visit were immediately in their cars to see what would be left of the house.
I absolutely cannot imagine what this feeling would have been like had it been our primary residence. It is sickening to not know if all your possessions were gone. And we just kept thinking how lucky we were that no one was hurt. Erin and Tim were at their lake place when the storm started coming so they got in their car and drove away from it. Though their house was not hit, it would have been scary to be that close.
When my parents got to the lake there were cars all over the road, powerlines down, trees uprooted everywhere, and there wasn't a road that was passable close to the house. My dad parked the car and started walking while my mom called me crying and said that everything looked so bad. A couple hours later they called to tell me that our place was structurally ok but we would have a lot of cleanup to do. Unfortunately, the guest house of our next door neighbor was gone as well as the entire house of the neighbor one past them.
I was so anxious to get down there and see everything so early the next morning I drove to Shawnee with my mom, Hadley, and Hudson. It was quite a sight! Here are some of the pictures I took the morning of May 20th:
Just a little representation of how big the trees were:
A look over at our neighbors lot. The trash in the middle picture is a pulvarized guest house.
And the neighbors house one more lot over:
Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. As many of the pictures show, the skies were getting dark once again and since storms were predicted for this afternoon my mom and I loaded up the kids and got in the car to head home. When we got to our house we turned on the news to see more tornados were coming. My mom stayed at my house with the kids and I jumped in the car to pick Peyton up from school so we could know she was safe. It looked as if the storms were going to cross I-40 right as my brother and dad would be taking that path so my mom called to tell them to take shelter somewhere and get off the road. About 2:30 the tornado made a horrific touch down in Moore hitting two schools and wiping out full neighborhoods. Many lives were lost in what the news is saying is Oklahomas worst tornado in history.
The next weekend our entire family was at the lake for two days straight beginning the cleanup process. It wasn't exactly how we had planned on spending Memorial day but it needed to get done. We all had a good time together, got a great workout, and were thankful for how much worse it could have been. The Southern Baptist Disaster relief came and helped us clean up and I cannot imagine how we could have gotten it all done without them!
Here is a picture of many of the trees for our burn pile. We could have hosted all of Shawnee for a marshmallow roast with the size of this thing:
There were fallen acorns everywhere. My back was killing me from bending over and picking them up so I told all the kids I would give them a penny for each acorn they picked up in their Easter baskets. I was out $4.07 and they thought they were millionaires!
We still managed to play a little while we were there as well. Hadley is incredibly good at maneuvering this four-wheeler!
Sleepy girl after a weekend of hard work. We were ALL ready to pass out!
It has been amazing to see the state of Oklahoma come together. People have volunteered and raised money for the relief in every way imaginable. I have seen kids raising money by having lemonade stands and I saw groups of people on street corners holding signs that say, "Please pray for Oklahoma." Vets volunteered their time to take care of stray animals that were found and Blake Shelton organized a relief concert and donated all the proceeds. It makes me so emotional and proud to say I am from Oklahoma!
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