I live in Tuscaloosa county, and I am almost without words at this point. We live in the extreme north part of the county. I simply cannot explain what we lives through over the past 24 hours! We started at 3:45 am with a storm system that caused wide spread damage. We then moved into the afternoon with a tornado just 1/2 north of my house. I have several friends whose houses are simply gone. This is NOT the tornado you see reported in Tuscaloosa. There were so many, and so much devastation around us. When that tornado came through, the air was literally sucked out of our underground storm shelter through the vents. It was the eeriest of things! We lost power around then. When the big one (we were constantly under a warning, so we just camped out in the shelter watching movies on the laptop) came through Tuscaloosa, we were watching from outside our shelter. We are about 20 miles from the location it hit. All we could see was a huge storm cloud with a large arched rainbow over it. I hope I can figure out how to post it from my phone. We had several more warnings before the night was over. We have minor damage, still without power and they are telling us it may be a week before it is restored. We have a generator, so we are thankful for that. We are also thankful for our storm shelter! My dh is on a field trip to D.C. with my oldest son, so I have been doing this all by myself, with a 9, 7, and 4 year old! We live in the middle of 70 acres, and have few neighbors, but I've been checked on plenty
My dog was injured in the storms (so we think) and I had to carry him into town tonight to the vet. While we were there, the kids and I went and walked by the damaged area, and my heart will never recover. It's just gone. Piles of debris, metal, and mud. Two whole communities no longer exist. Four different schools were totally leveled. Thank God schools had already cancelled, or we would be looking at further loss of life. Our town really needs your prayers!
If you would like to know how you can further help, you can visit our local newspaper website, Tuscaloosanews.com and you can also "like" Tuscaloosa on FB. I know they are asking for blood donations everywhere, and the Red Cross is taking donations. If you would like to donate to a church or other local charity, please PM me and I can send u in the right direction with a phone number. I am usually the last one to ask for help, but after seeing the loss today, I am not beyond asking at all. We are going to need it! And the people who need it most can't ask right now.
This is our Katrina.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
raying:
