Memphis Tornado

Friday evening proved interesting with a sudden burst of storm and tornado. Matt and Hailey were in the back yard raking and swinging while I was running errands. The wind started so he stopped immediately and put the rake away. By the time he got the shed locked, he turned around and branches were starting to fall from the tree. He grabbed Hailey and ran for the door. By the time they got into the house the rain was dumping. He said it sounded like they were in an ocean. The tornado sirens started going so he and Hailey got in the closet and called me. I was at Walmart and headed toward the door when I saw how immediately dark and horrible it was. Matt said to wait it out there. I was walking around when I heard the announcement that there was a tornado in the area and all customers were to report to the meat department. I stood there for about 20-30 minutes and headed home as soon as they said it had cleared some. It took me about 30 minutes to get home the way that usually takes me about 12. All the stoplights were out and debris everywhere. When I got to our neighborhood I had to keep detouring because of huge fallen trees. The photos below were taken Saturday afternoon. Most people had already cleaned up their yards, but there are still several trees down. The photo with the grocery bags shows the downed power lines. We are very relieved to have power back this evening. 48+ hours without power made me realize some weak points in our emergency preparation. We felt very blessed with safety and relatively very little debris to clean up. Our meat is still frozen and we lost just a few things in the fridge.