Tornados

We crouched in the basement Sunday evening as tornados tore through our area. We could hear glass breaking and what sounded like someone stomping across our living room floor. When the worst of the storm was passed hubby went upstairs to see the damage, and there was none what-so-ever. Only the electricity was out. Praise the LORD.

The actual tornado passed about a mile from our house. There is a dealer of manufactured and modular homes there that lost all but one of his houses. One is fine, one has the front ripped off, and one is upside down. The other 50 or so are gone. There is just a field of rubble, but no actual houses.

We think the sounds we were hearing were from those homes slamming around.

We spent the whole day yesterday helping some friends salvage what they could from their house. Most of their windows blew in, some siding came off and all the shingles blew off. There was glass and water everywhere, but they were all safe in the basement. Their barn was flattened, and their camper was picked up from one side of their house and thrown to the other side and smashed to bits. Their LP gas tank blew off the foundation and pulled the gas lines out of the house, thank God it didn't explode.

They were in good shape compared to some others though. One house we had to pass by to get to them was completely gone. The only thing there was the basement. The house was completely gone, nobody knows where it went. Some houses lost the entire attic, or upstairs. One house had a grain bin sitting right in the middle of it.

By far the worst hit was the town of Parkersburg. The tornadoes literally flattened the entire town. Most all of these people came up from the basement to find their house was totally missing. In total 7 people died from these storms.

Please pray for all the people who are starting to clean up the mess and rebuild. Their nerves are shattered, all their possessions are gone (including photos and important papers).