The tornado caught us by storm!

I was borrowing Sweet Baby Rays from a neighbor & the corner of the sky was black. I said that looks like the tornado clouds we had in Oklahoma.  And she said yes we have bad storms rolling in. I forgot that several days before we had a Lunar Moon (shown with rings around the moon) meaning bad weather is on its way.  Although the lunar moon looked pretty we had no idea what was headed our way! 

Normally in Nov. we never have tornados in IL so we have had the threats in the past but nothing actually forms so people were almost joking about all the threats.  (It reminded me of how they say it might snow in Nashville, TN & everyone buys the grocery store out of milk.)

When the siren went off I went about my way to calmly get the kids to the basement.  My friend called freakish & I said go to the basement. Another friend called confused & I assured her it was not a warning. That only happens on the first Tuesday of the month at noon.

I was a little annoyed at Greg since he was out back putting our patio furniture in the garage all while the sirens were going off but in his defense the table has shattered once before from high winds so we didn't want that again.  I took the kids to the basement & did homework not realizing we were right under a window.  Then we came upstairs & realized we forgot to take our dog down so we did that too. Then the kids wanted drinks so I got those too going back & forth several times during the siren.  (Silly, me!) Then Greg finally came to the basement & said there was not a cloud in the sky now & it was creepy.  Of course I was just happy he finally was in the basement.  That instant the  tornado siren shut off & we came out of the basement upstairs.

 Then my brother called in a panic & said, "Are you alive?"  And I said "Yes why?"  And he said "Washington was flattened!"  I said, "wait, what?" I couldn't process the information that quickly because I was in shock. He said, "The tornado touched down in Washington & flattened entire neighborhoods & some farms." I said "Is your Sister- in-Law ok?(knowing Kelly lives in Washington)and he said,"Thankfully yes!" I said thank you for checking on us & I better get off the phone to tell Greg & check on some of our friends that live there.

That's when it made everyone realize with a moments notice you can have nothing.  Thankfully there was only one man that died in all of the destruction in Washington.  His wife was at the bottom of the stairs to the basement & he was at the top of the stairs saying I can't find the cats  & the tornado took him.  His cats were probably hiding like Purdy. She had been pacing for more than an hour before that & she knew something was headed our way. Right before it came she made weird sounds like to alert us (since she never makes sounds) & then she hid in her sturdy wood kennel before the siren went off. Then we took her to the basement.  From now on I will surely use her as my warning beacon. 

For the people who were impacted by the Tornado they are finding papers & documents in Chicago which is 3 hours away. They determined it was an EF-4 tornado which is a big one. Too big for anywhere but especially too big that close to home. 

We all learned some lessons in this. You just never know when we will have another siren but next time we will be in the closet under the basement stairs!