Words can not describe how blessed I feel to be writing this blog post right now. I am safe, my house is fine, all my family members are ok, and even my blogging laptop is just a ok…but for many many others across Alabama it is a much different story.
It all started about 5:00 am yesterday when I woke up to sirens and eventually our power going out due to straight line winds. This storm was bad enough to completely destroy my childhood neighborhood of Cahaba Heights (about 15 minutes away from us) we have several friends that live there now and they say it looks like a war zone. The elementary school is so bad that the rumor is it will not even reopen this year. Due to the bad morning weather I was forced to work from the 1 PACKED Starbucks in town because it was the only one open.
I did get back home later that afternoon to wait for round 2 of the storms. Schools dismissed early and people hurried home because we all knew this could get back and boy did it! Our power came back on before the second round of storms which allowed us to watch the news. There we witnessed something live on tv that was just horrible. We saw this massive tornado come down live on tv and rip though peoples homes. It was something I will never forget. It felt like a disaster movie but I started crying while watching it because you knew that just 30 minutes away it wasn’t just a movie for these people. Their homes were really being destroyed, real injuries were happening, and real lives were being taken that can never come back. And it was SO incredibly hard to watch. Viewing the live feeds of the tornado was much more real that seeing the tornado’s on the radar like normal. We were watching peoples lives get destroyed right before our eyes so it was very saddening on one hand but completely freaked me out on the other because it was heading towards us! We took the mattress off the bed upstairs and dragged it downstairs to the bathroom with us. We then both got on the phones to call all of our loved ones to make sure they were in their safe spot and to tell them we loved them. Praise the Lord nothing happened but with family all over the central part of the state something could of easily happened.
It was a long night…many tornados, no power, and just making sure everyone we loved was safe. But praise the Lord we are all ok! But please continue to pray for all the families who were not as fortunate. The death toll is up to 162 in Alabama alone and many families are homeless now. Oh how my heart just breaks for them…
I have been following your blog this past month since we are adopting a little girl from South Korea. I feel as if I know you and I actually said to my husband this morning I hope you and your family are okay. My prayers are with you all. I am so happy that Zoey has a home to come home to!
I’m so glad you and your family are okay, Lauren. As you know, Eric’s family is from Alabama and we were concerned that they were okay since they live about 30 miles from Tuscaloosa. Thankfully, they are all okay. His dad’s cousin had two trees fly though her house and she was stuck in it all night, but she was uninjured. I’m sure it will be difficult to drive through when we come visit next week.