The dance begins...
So as some of you know there was a tornado in Williamston, MI last night around 11 o'clock or so.
I heard on the radio that my hometown was being touched by a 'finger of God' (if you're of such persuasion, and was obviously immediately concerned as a good portion of my family and my wifes family lives in billtown. Then I discovered that Doppler had gotten so good that they could tell you what streets the damn thing was going down and of it passed in the immediate vicinity of not only my aunt, uncle, and fathers, even touching my wifes family as we grew up in the same town.
Hearing this on the radio I immediately decided that I had to get in touch with my family, so I called all the phones and cell phones and after getting no response I dropped what I was doing, left work, and drove into the remains of a tornado. Probably not the smartest idea considering there was another tornado producing storm nipping at me heels most of the way there.
The courtship...
I had to approach my hometown from three directions to avoid all the damage, only to find that I also had to abandon my car and proceed on foot to avoid downed power and telephone lines. I still managed to snag a telephone line on my way in and do some damage to my headlights, but all in all the car will be very repairable. I found myself crawling over massive downed tress, avoiding downed power lines, smelling the massive natural gas leaks on the air, in total darkness and silence.
An eerie feeling to go back to ones hometown in the middle of the night to discover that it's been more or less destroyed. Not even really too much of an exaggeration as a state of emergency was declared and professional crews from all over the area were brought in asses damage and remove all the destroyed trees. So many many mangled trees and wires everywhere, and no light anywhere. This isn't like when you lose power and the next block has it. I grew up in a farm town where the next town is at least 10-15 minutes off. It was pitch black.
Anyway everybody is safe even me for being stupid and overzealous.
The morning after...
Not too much damage, my father had some roof damage, my aunt and uncle had some damage to one of their vehicles and many many trees were lost all over town. To us natives the town will never look the same again. My wifes families home was hit the worst, with all the windows being shattered out/in, and the garage being totally demolished by the falling trees.
I went to the park I used to play in as a child today and there were only three trees left standing. Originally there must have been at least 50-60 proud old trees of all species, Oak, Pine, and Walnut all fell under the massive power of the storm. It gives you respect for the environment you live in and gives you pause at the thought that we as species have arrogance enough to think we've really done anything in the way of taming it. Reminds you that the world as you know it is anything but permanent.
In retrospect it was slightly less than intelligent of me to dive headlong into the situation without so much as a flashlight, but I guess that's just part of who I am. Too busy living in the moment and worrying about my family to care, or even much consider the possibility for personal danger. The line I nicked with my vehicle could have just as easily been a downed power line resulting in my near immediate death.
Perhaps not so intelligent, but it does tell you something about the kind of loyalty you can expect out of me if you happen to be one of the people I love...