Just Telling Our Story

Tornado pics posted

If you're using Google Reader or another RSS feed to check new posts: I have posted pics on my tornado post from yesterday. Google Reader won't recognize it as a new post, since it was technically an edit to an old one.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say Google Reader, check it out. I have recently been introduced, and it's wonderful for keeping up with blogs, especially if the bloggers don't post every day (like yours truly). You simply subscribe to the blogs you read, and the new posts show up all in one place (inside Google Reader). Then you only have to access one Web page to read all of the new blog posts from your favorite bloggers. It's a fantastic thing!

Tornado terror

If you know me at all, you probably know that tornadoes terrify me. And given the round of severe weather (including four tornadoes within 60 miles of here, in Indy and surrounding towns) last Friday and the anticipated severe weather on Tuesday, I can't stop thinking about them.

My heart breaks for the people who have lost everything. Many are suddenly homeless. Yet what's worse is that many of those affected have probably just lost what they have — until this experience — known to be one of the most important truths: You're safe at home.

Home. From our earliest days, we know home. We feel loved here, comfortable here, safe here. It's where we want to go when life gets ugly. Yet when something so unexpected and vicious as a tornado rips one's home to shreds—with her/him inside—without warning, suddenly what's left is a feeling of indescribable insecurity...in what is supposed to be one's safest place.

On Sept. 20, 2002, nine other St. Francis Community Relations and Marketing employees (and our graphic design vendor) and I were  obliviously sitting in the hundred-mile path of a terrible, long-lived, very strong tornado. I can't remember the strength of the tornado now (maybe an EF-3), but I know the strength of the effect it had on me. We were fortunate. We all survived, and no one was even mildly hurt. But the damage was significant.

Lost in the building/our offices (which had just finished a two-year-long renovation) were the roof, windows, walls, computers, historical files, hospital photo archives, furniture, my personal portfolio samples and several unfinished projects. My car was totaled, along with most of the others in the parking lot.

But that didn't bother me much, really. What did bother me was the feeling I got when I walked into my own home that afternoon — 40 miles from our demolished offices. Several hours after the tornado, I managed to make it back to Danville, pick up my then-4-month-old son and walk into my home. (My husband happened to be in Switzerland at the time. E had not yet been born.) I will never forget the feeling I had at that exact moment. I stood in the hallway and cried.

I had lived through something horrific without so much as a scratch. And I had a home to return to when it was all over. But I couldn't help but feel the loss as if it had hit my home instead of my office. If it could happen to my office, it could happen here — in a much smaller house without the advantage of lots of space to pad us from Mother Nature's fury. And I could have lost everything here just as easily as we did there. Only here, the contents are much more valuable. My family.

We were lucky. But many of the residents of apartments on Indy's east side last Friday weren't. They lost everything (although it appears there was no loss of life; thank you, God!). They have no homes. And while they might be going through the motions now — trying to figure out things like insurance coverage and just being able to find enough proof of who they are to show creditors, the BMV and everyone else — soon a much more significant loss will set in: the loss of feeling safe in one's own home. It could affect them forever. It has me.

Please pray for all of those affected by Friday's storms, as well as those affected by the hundreds of tornadoes throughout the country this spring. Friday's were bad for Indiana, but we've been relatively lucky so far this year. Other states have not.

And if you're in Indiana, be prepared to buckle down. We have several days of severe weather ahead of us this week. Stay safe.

(I hope to add some pics from our own tornado at some point tomorrow. Stay tuned.)

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(Tuesday morning edit)

2002 Tornado Photos

Here are some of the photos from our tornado in 2002. Click on the images for larger versions.

Left: Our cars (mine is the green VW Jetta on the left) right after the tornado hit.
Middle: The front of our strip mall (taken the next day).
Right: Our parking lot when the emergency vehicles arrived. The car wash in the background on the left was completely demolished.

Left: We were standing here waiting for the storm to pass and trying to figure out how the heck we were going to get home. One of my coworkers' cars was drivable, so five of us piled in her car and carpooled all over town to get home. It was strange — we got a mile away from our offices and it was sunny like nothing happened. We looked pretty funny driving in that beat-up car! If I remember correctly, I am pretty sure at least one of the windows was broken out. (Edit: Yep, the back window was out. See the "cars" picture in the top line of pictures above? Hers was the gray Jeep SUV on the right.)
Middle, left: Our intern, Bill, stands in front of our offices. The windows that didn't break were covered with this thick splattering of grime. It was everywhere — all over the insides of cars, on windows, on the ground...
Middle, right: The left corner of our strip mall. These were the windows to our offices.
Right: Our logo window, splashed with grimy splatter.

 

Left: Our strip mall, to the right of our offices (on the other side of the Atrium).
Middle: This is the back loading dock, right outside our offices.
Right: This is the kitchen table under which most of the 10 of us took cover. We could see the sky through the ceiling in here when the whole thing was over.

 

Left: Inside, at the back of our office suites. See the sunshine through the ceiling? (This was taken the next day.)
Middle, left: The main hallway, where Health Promotions staff had their cubicles. Again, sunshine. This was also taken the day after the tornado.
Middle, right and far right: My car, a 1999 VW Jetta, was totaled in the tornado. It was kind of a lucky thing, really. The lease was due in a month, and I was WAY over my allowed mileage! :-) I still hated to lose this car, though. It was the first car I bought after getting a "real" job out of college, and I loved it!