Tornados

Last night started with severe thunderstorms. Thankfully Hultz can sleep through anything because we live near a firetruck station, an ambulance entrance to the hospital & the landing pad for the hospital helicopter.

Last night, however, there was an additional noise to our 'night life'...the tornado sirens went off. I panic easily and Jon is always calm and rational, but even he was concerned as we watched the weather men explain what was going on. We were hoping they would be at least partially correct in all of their predictions.

It was incredible to watch the storm tracking on television. We saw it cross I-30, come up I-630, and heard the areas in Little Rock the tornado had touched down. Around 10pm the weather men told the people in our area of town to seek shelter, so we obeyed. Our house was built 75 years ago, as was our whole neighborhood. It was not the safest place to hide-out during a tornado.

So we woke Hultz, said a family prayer, and headed up to Jon's research building right across the street. We met up with our good friends, the Dixons who were also seeking shelter. We all hung out in a state-of-the-art research center basement with our wireless computers & weather radios while our kids thought it was the best play-place ever. The husbands were calm. The wives were nervous and trying to keep the kids from breaking anything. :)

Up until now, I've been grateful for where we live in Little Rock. We've been blessed with a nice home that we can afford. We have a safe neighborhood, a nice backyard, and it's right across the street from campus. There are times though, I wish we had moved to another neighborhood because we could have a much nicer home for the same price as our home.

All of that changed last night. If we had lived in the neighborhood that I sometimes covet, we would have been in the direct path of the tornado. Right now, they have no electricity, gas leaks, and 1/2 the homes are gone. We were blessed to be able to walk across the street and stay in one of the safest parts of town.

The tornado didn't come to our area of town. It did hit near our church building and other parts of the city. Our friend Dylan had a tree fall onto his house (Jon is there helping now). It's path turned and we were safe. We broke up the kids' party around 11:15pm to head home.

Here are a few pictures from the local television stations for last nights' storm.

Tornado spotted about 10 miles from our house:
Hail from the storm:

An airplane at the North Little Rock airport overturned:

Count your blessings, name them one by one...