Ruby Slippers?

I’m crossing my fingers that we don’t get carried away by a tornado and need ruby red slippers to get home.

If you have seen or read any news lately, you are surely aware of the massive amounts of tornado activity in our part of the country right now. We have been very fortunate to have been left alone in our immediate area by these forces of nature. (*Knock on wood!)

I have previously seen other places around the country who have suffered by tornados or other natural disasters this season and been thankful we weren’t part of that. Well it’s all starting to get really close to home for us.

Sunday our neighbor to the south, Joplin MO suffered from an EF5 multi-vector wedge tornado. This city of 50,000 now looks worse than a war zone (according to numerous war veterans) after this massive nearly mile-wide tornado stormed over six miles through destroying homes, retail stores, a hospital, and even taking over 100 lives. Last I heard there are still over 1,000 people who are unaccounted for.  This city is less than 200 miles from our home here. The pictures and videos are devastating.

Since Sunday we’ve been watching as tornado’s ripped across the central USA. Our neighbors in Oklahoma and Kansas have been dodging them as we’ve watched and worried for them. Today was our turn once again.

Sedalia was hit today by another tornado. This town is about 35ish miles away from our home. It tore through residential areas destroying homes and businesses. It created an estimated 1.6 billion $ in damage. Luckily they were well prepared-I think all of us here have a new appreciation for what mother nature can really do after Joplin. Only about 15-20 people were injured and no fatalities reported. I watched the news station online as they reported a tornado Warning for our hometown-Boonville-knowing there was nothing I could do from Columbia. Luckily even though there was a scare-no tornados formed in my town, although I think one was spotted only a few miles away.

After passing through Boonville, the storm was headed to Columbia, another city of about 50,000ish people-where I work and Josh is in school.  The alarms sounded and I checked the news feed once again (sometimes they sound for the whole county, but our city is not in danger-sometimes it’s further south or something). It said there was a wall cloud over the city, and funnel clouds forming. It asked all people in Columbia and surrounding areas to seek shelter immediately! I was already supposed to be off work-but I sure wasn’t heading toward the coming storm in a tornado warning. I helped as we moved all our patients and boarders to the basement where we all hung out for an hour until the threat passed. No tornados touched down in Columbia. About 15 minutes to the east though, multiples touched down but I don’t think they did a whole lot of damage-they weren’t in really heavily populated areas. I didn’t hear of anyone hurt to our east.

I felt lucky that the tornados just kind of hopped over us, holding off from just barely to the west to just barely to the east.

Meanwhile—Josh was in a surgery lab doing surgery all afternoon. The Vet School is a storm shelter-so I guess they didn’t feel like the students needed to know what was going on. I talked to him once he was out of class (after the storm had passed) and he hadn’t hurt anything about the storms or tornados!

The weather people said this big storm should be continuing to the east and dissipating tomorrow. I wish well to all those east of us here and hope no one else has to suffer from this crazy weather.  My prayers are with all those who are affected by the recent storms-those who are now homeless or who lost loved ones-I am thinking of you…

Thank you to all our family and friends who have had us in their thoughts and prayers to keep us safe in this tornado hazard zone! We are safe and we truly appreciate your concerns.