TORNADO!!!

Two weeks ago was a typical Saturday afternoon in my region of Ohio. It had been a rainy week and Saturday was turning out to be a decent day. The weather forecast called for isolated thunderstorms in the afternoon, so I decided that we needed to get our yard work done early.

I spent the better part of the morning hauling truckloads of mulch to my house and spreading it in the landscaping around my house. I finished a load around 1:30 and debated if I wanted to go get another one. The mulch place is about twenty minutes away from my house and it closes at two on Saturdays. I decided to call it a day.

By the time I cleaned up the yard, put away the shovels and rakes, and cleaned up our walkway it was about two. I decided that it was time to get cleaned up before deciding what to do next.

I stepped out of the shower about twenty minutes later, dried myself off, and put on some shorts. As I was drying my hair my wife came up to our bathroom and said that we needed to get to the basement. My wife gets a little anxious when the weather gets stormy, so I went into our bedroom to see what the weather guy on the television said. When the TV came on, it said TORNADO WARNING for my town. So I walked back to my closet to grab a shirt, slap on some deodorant, and head to the basement.

As I was doing this, a strong wind and heavy rain started pelting our bathroom windows. We walked down the two sets of stairs to join our kids in the basement. The strong wind and heavy rain persisted for about ten minutes, then all was quiet. I glanced at my watch, the tornado warning had expired.

Now I'm a severe weather junkie, so I hurried upstairs so I could run outside and see what, if anything, had happened outside. There were a couple firetrucks at a business that is about 600 yards from my house. It's not uncommon for firetrucks to be there, so I didn't think much of it.

Then I looked at the tree line on the opposite side of our valley and noticed something different.

There were gaps in the tree line that had not been there before.

Then I looked at the neighbor's house about 200 yards away from my house. The barn behind his house had lost some of its roof

and a couple of his smaller farm buildings had sustained some damage.


After confirming that there were no injuries or danger at the neighbor's, my oldest son and I drove to the other end of our road. We saw that some businesses down at that end took more damage from whatever came through.








After a couple days, we learned that the National Weather Service decided that an F1 tornado had come through our valley. Fortunately the only damage was to property. No injuries to any people.

As a result of the tornado, I lost internet and phone service to my house. Kinda weird since the lines that service my side of the valley were not in the path of the storm.

But anyhow, now that service has been restored I'm able to get back to the blogging.