A bumpy night

It was a pretty rough night around here.  For days, the forecast had been for severe weather to come through, and the estimates were not incorrect.  The first round was about an hour north of my hometown.  a confirmed tornado touched down and destroyed several building, but thankfully no houses.  I watched the coverage of that for about three hours.  Then we had a break, and about an hour later it was our turn.  The winds and rain were driving, and we moved into a room to be away from the big windows.  We ended up losing power for about 35 minutes.  Catherine was at work where they lost power for about 15 minutes.  Thomas is still at his Boys State, and they were also without power for about 15 minutes.  He was really nervous, but the counselors had taken the boys to the basement.  I was following along, and since we were never really in the direct path of the storm I truly wasn't very concerned.  The sirens did go off, but that was because there was a warning in the county even though it was no where near us.  

The rounds kept coming though.  It made it challenging to sleep during the night.  The fact that our sweet pup is having allergies didn't help either.  My phone kept alerting us to storms, and overall it just made it tough to sleep.

There was a sweet story about the tornado up north, and I could've cried.  The area that was hit was a very small farming community.  As the news people were arriving, they realized that neighbors, estimated to be over 100, had arrived to help.  People were literally running to the barns with chainsaws in an effort to help free the animals from the destroyed barns.  Other farmer arrived with trucks and trailers to help evacuate the animals.  The reporter was clearly not from around here (or any small town I suspect) because he was just amazed by the turn out.  When the reporter asked a local resident about it, the resident responded that he was impressed but not at all surprised.  Neither was I.  It's just what people do in small towns, especially in the Midwest.  It was a wonderful reminder of the goodness of humanity.