The day started out with me complaining and being very upset. I arrived at Madelyn's house with Maria and Andrew, ready to start a normal Thurs. Only to find that Madelyn's 3 older siblings, Lexi 6, Kyle 9, and Cali 11, were out of school and would unexpectedly be joining us. Thinking the extra $30 was not enough to cover the headache of caring for 6 children, and wondering how I would ever get Madelyn and Andrew down for naps that afternoon, I proceeded to get online during a dull moment and complain to my mom, John and other friends. Little did I know how exciting our day would become.
It was really windy all morning, nothing unusual for this time of year in northern CO. The kids were starting to eat lunch when the power went out. Once again, no big deal. It started to rain and hail a little bit. I proceeded to go to the front door and take pics of the hail until one popped me in the leg, which hurt and left quite a bruise. Before I even made it back into the kitchen there was golf-ball size hail falling. It was quite a sight. Lexi ran to the front door and had her face pressed against the door looking at the hail. I told her 3 times to back up in case it hit the window just right and broke it, however she either couldn't hear me or chose to ignore me. So I shouted at the top of my lungs "LEXI BAHNSEN BACK AWAY FROM THAT DOOR BEFORE IT BREAKS IN YOUR FACE" Not the best choice of words, but it got her attention. She began to freak out, crying hysterically. I tried to calm her down but the sound of the hail was very un-nerving, especially to her. So I suggested that we all go down in the basement where it wouldn't be as loud and the window were small enough that we wouldn't have to worry about them breaking.
After getting all 7 of us down stairs I ran back upstairs to get a bouncy seat for Madelyn, at which time I noticed the baseball-softball size hail and that it was an erry gray color outside preventing me from seeing even six feet out the back door. I quickly went back downstairs where Cali was complaining that her ears were popping. I noticed it too so I asked everyone to go into the laundry room where there were no windows at all. We stayed in there for about 5 mins or so singing songs to try to calm down Lexi. The sound of the hail was unbelievable. When it sounded like things had calmed down, I told the kids to stay downstairs while I went upstairs to get a bottle for Maria. Upon which I found glass all over the floor where hail had busted out a living room window, right above where the two babies had been sitting about 10 mins earlier. I went back down stairs and told them the storm was over but I needed them to stay down there until I couldn't figure out what was going on and try to pick up the glass. I put Cali in charge of feeding 7 month old Madelyn and keeping an eye on Andrew, Lexi and Kyle, while I took little Maria with me outside to scope things out. Several neighbors were looking around in amazement trying to figure out if it was a bad storm or really a tornado. One neighbor that I talked to said she saw the storm and it couldn't have been a tornado because it wasn't funneled. It was just a giant black wall cloud moving across. Little did she know it was a 3/4-1 mile wide tornado moving across land at 45-50 mph with winds around 150-165mph. I then started trying to reach any of the parents and John. Of course phone lines were being bombarded so it took forever, luckily a neighbor got a hold of Meagan and said she was headed home. By the time she and Travis got there most of us had looked across the field and saw piles of 2x4's; that's when it hit us, it really was a tornado.
Someone came down the street saying if you could help go to the daycare across the street, they've see legs under some of the debris. Luckily it was only a doll that had been spotted. All the teachers managed to get about 150 kids into the gym and bathrooms and proceeded to throw them selves on top of the children to protect them from the flying debris. After the storm they smelt gas so they took the kids over to the bank and put them in the vault. There where a few minor cuts and bruises but all the children were accounted for.
It took about 2 hours before I could reach John, once I did, I fell apart. I am terrified of storms, but God gave me the strength to hold it together for the children. Once they were all safe with their parents, all the stress came flooding out! My legs went out from under me and I melted to the floor for about 5 mins. The windshield of my car was busted in three places but was still drivable, so John came and took Andrew and I home. ( I was too shaky to drive) We quickly checked on a few friends and then proceeded to our house, about 5 mile away, to find not even a single blade of grass touched! Just no power for about 45 mins.
After calling back about 15 people that had called and left messages we tried to just have a "relaxing" evening at home. However it broke my heart when I put Andrew to bed and he woke up 3 times shaking and crying, saying he was scared the "big snowballs would break his windows".
The following day I thought everything is fine now. I've been able to process everything and life is back to normal... WRONG! I managed to sneak in a nap at about 1pm on Friday. I suddenly woke up, shaking, to massive winds outside, some of the gust were clocked at up to 75 and 90mph. John already had the news on and they said there was another tornado but it was 20 miles or so east of us, so I tried to calm down a little. Then they announced that funnel clouds had been spotted in Johnstown and Windsor. I freaked. I ran outside screaming for John, to find a sudden calm. Which of course freaked me out even more. He came inside and said our area is completely clear of any clouds, we're safe. That flood of emotion was unbelievable. Later that night I heard sirens and my heart started pounding and I started shaking again. Floods of sound memories came rushing back. Last night I woke up three time because the power went off. I would normally sleep through that but instead I was panicked. I'm sure in time I will not be so sensitive to all those simple sounds, but for now John will just have to put up with my mini freak outs!
Our church sits on the back side of the neighborhood that was destroyed. We had several broken windows and some roof damage, but they got it cleaned up and we held our 3 services as usual. In the 2nd service there were 2 families that lost their houses. But each family member was fine and they were just thankful to be standing there today praise the God that protected them.
I'm attaching some photos of both the house that I nanny in and some taken today and the neighborhood that was hit hardest. Oddly enough when we bought this house almost 4 years ago we had to decided between two houses, this one and one on Kenosha Ct in Windsor. One of the pics is of that other house. Most of the houses on Kenosha Ct are now uninhabitable. Again I praise God for those little things!
The window that broke leaving glass in the living room floor
Back yard damage. That is an approx 600lbs bbq grill that
took 3 adult men to set upright.
As you can see there used to be 6ft privacy fences between everyone's houses
Aprox. 2 blocks away from the house I was in.
The beginning of the hail. This is what hit my knee and left a nice bruise.
Like I said... this was just the beginning.
Random pictures of the houses and other buildings aprrox 3 blocks from where we were.
The house on Kenosha Ct, that we almost bought 4 years ago.
2 house down from the house we almost bought on Kenosha Ct.
The damage to my car! If you look closely you can see the hail dents on the top. It's hard to see in pics on a white car. A neighbor said my car looked like a golf ball. And we only have liability. Hopefully Meagan and Travis homeowners ins will cover it since I was on their property!
1 comment:
Holy smokes! What destruction! Glad you are all safe and well. I'm checking your blog often these days - keep the posts coming.
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