We're okay

In case you heard the reports on the news and were trying not to freak out, I thought I would write a little note and tell you that we're all okay.

I know that the news (especially for the benefit of my out-of-state friends & family it seems) always get their geography WRONG and totally over dramatize the damage, so let me set the record straight:

We are OK. We knew the storm was coming and were watching the news. The forming clouds were AMAZING to see. Alex & I were at Glenn & Cindy's when the tornado sirens went off and we just went down to the basement and watched the news from there. Their basement's cushy and Cindy had stashed an entire library of Stan's old books for Alex on one of the shelves. Good Grammy. Alex thought it was all just an adventure.

We called Grandmother & Granddad and they headed to the basement. Stan was at church for rehersal but they quickly canceled that and he joined us again. Nate & Lindsay were accounted for via text messages and are fine.

We lost satelite signal for a while because the rain was so heavy. Dad pulled out the emergency am/fm/weather band radio/tv/flashlight (excuse me, torch), really-cool-emergency-thing that Val gave us for Christmas one year. We watched Fox4's Joe Lauria and at 8:15pm they cleared the tornado warnings and we went home. Alex was in his own bed a little before 9pm and Stan & I made sure we had the appropriate emergency things laid out and stowed away in the basement. Everything was calming down and we went to bed (with the TV on in the background).

We were woken by the wind at 1:45am. It was insane. I mean insane. Officially, hurricane force, straight line winds clocked at 60-112 MPH. Several small tornadoes touched down in areas outlying to the metro, MILES from us. Lots of people are without power and there's a lot of clean-up. There are a few road closures from debris and downed power lines, but we have not been directly impacted (our neighborhood looked as though nothing happened!)
And, I haven't heard of one serious injury, that's good news!

So, other than not having slept all that well (though Alex didn't stir once... that kid could sleep thru, well, a hurricane...) we are all just fine.

I have to say that it was just yesterday I had to explain to my warehouse manager that earthquakes don't come with warnings... that would be hilarious though... earthquake sirens, haha. No, earthquake warnings are wall hangings like Raindrops at my parent's house (I call dibs if you're listening, CAY, RAY & BAY) and pull cords on ceiling fans. You get 0.2 seconds to duck and cover. Here you've got at least a few minutes... Tradeoffs.