April 25, 2010

• T O R N A D O !!

  
  TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

  For those of you that read Bratfink's blog (Bratland now), you know the reason I didn't post.  A tornado hit Albertville and one of the areas was just two miles from our house.  Unfortunately, it was so close to the Princess that, when the electric pole was yanked or knocked down, it pulled the electric wiring to their house down with it.

  I found out later that the Princess was not at home when it all happened.  She was at a friend's house (and got trapped there almost all night because of the severe damages to a truck behind her.  Also, there were trees all around clogging the street that was a direct shot home for her.  She was just 3 miles away.  It ended up taking her 15 miles of travel in order to get around the debris, fallen poles and wires to her own house.  She had called me when Johnnycakes called her to tell her about the damage.  He, also, had not been home but they were fortunate because a neighbor got a tree limb through their vehicle. 

  As it was, the Princess was in an apartment building that had windows that were imploding here and there and she got hit on the leg by a flying roofing shingle. It left her with a rather nasty bruise. Needless-to-say, that scared the chit out of her being close enough to see all that happened around her. Her poor car took a scouring and there are scratches everywhere.  Some quite deep and even the windows are scratched up.  She's definitely going to need a paint job.  She felt lucky, however, because she saw the truck behind her lost his windows entirely.  While trying to get home, she had to travel through downtown Albertville and said the destruction reminded her of Port Charlotte after Hurricane Charlie, only the area was smaller.

  Here's a link to some of the first news about it (and it only noted the destruction in a small area locally): http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/04/tornado_that_hit_downtown_albe.ht

  Tonto actually saw the high school and said there was damage to the cafeteria and some of the classrooms, also.  Even though we are only two miles from one area the tornado touched down, we were lucky enough to only get some high wind bursts.  And they were *bursts*.  Nothing sustained for longer than a minute or so.  Some even less.  It was like the wind was whirling around, back and forth but with long pauses in between.

  The wind had the Beast worried sick about the fruit that was on the trees, especially the Alberta peach tree.  But, when he inspected them early this morning, he said the fruit seems to have held on well but the littlest pear tree has a bad list to one side and is going to need staking for a while.

  Our biggest problem was losing electricity.  After hearing from the woman I spoke with about the extent of the problem, I wasn't surprised to hear that we wouldn't have electricity back until some time Sunday afternoon.  We lost it at 10:30pm Saturday and didn't get it back on until 3:30pm Sunday afternoon. 

  I have a few more things to tell you but I have hit the high points.  No deaths but a few injuries, one serious.  But, I'm sure there are probably a lot of injuries going unreported like the Princess's since it's trivial and not worth troubling busy doctors OR sitting for hours in an emergency room because it IS trivial.

  Going to send this down the internet so you know what happened.  Love you all and will let you know more as *I* learn more.
  

  • 5:21 pm
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