 |
| Temple Daily Telegram, Saturday, May 25, 2024 |
I’ve lived through earthquakes in Alaska, sandstorms in New Mexico, and windstorms in
Oregon. I’ve lived in Temple for 12-1/2 years now, and I’ve seen lightning storms,
hailstorms, ice storms and torrential rainstorms, but until now I’ve never been in the path of a tornado.
That changed a week or so ago, on May 22. It had been a
rather ordinary day. The Weather Channel was sending us weather watches and
weather warnings, but that’s pretty common for this area. Evening came, and it
was about time to head to our Wednesday evening Bible study. The sky got dark –
about like it did when we had the total Eclipse back in April. And an angry
wind started blowing. The city’s warning sirens were blaring, so we made the
decision to tuck our car in the garage and stay home. A half hour later, we
were experiencing a storm like never before. A mixture of rain, hail and debris began
beating against our windows, and I was sure they would break, but they didn’t. I
was watching out our back windows, from as far away as I could get, and there
was so much rain, hail and debris in the air that I couldn’t see our backyard
tree or the fence. An eerie, roaring sound filled the air, and percussive
sounds came from our roof, windows and walls. I prayed my way through those
minutes that felt like hours. Soon after the worst of the storm had passed, our
electricity went out.
We were without power from Wednesday evening through 2:00
p.m. on Friday. By then we learned that the storm had, indeed, been the result
of a tornado that destroyed or severely damaged nearly 500 homes and
businesses, many of which were between a mile and two miles from our house. The tornado was rated as an EF-2, with maximum winds of 120 mph.
Residential homes off of West Adams Avenue were destroyed: https://youtu.be/zuzhUllzzB4
A lot of commercial property was also damaged or destroyed: https://youtu.be/dHMe8h4FCP0
Our neighborhood sits in the corner bounded by West Adams and Kegley. The tornado traveled up West Adams and lifted about the time it hit Kegley Road. Thankfully, our personal
damage was minimal – parts of our fence are down, our oak tree in the front
yard has one large limb and lots of small ones broken. We have someone coming
to check out our roof next week, but we don’t have damage that we can see from
the ground. We may have broken seals in some of our dual-pane windows - not sure. We lost
all the food in our refrigerator and freezer because of the power outage.
We restocked our groceries on Saturday, only to have another
wind storm come through and take the power down again on Tuesday, about noon.
It came back at 11:30 p.m. We were able to save the food this time.
Even in these difficult times, I’m thankful for God’s
providence and care. Here are just a few things that I was very thankful for:
- Although there were injuries, there was no loss of life in this tornado.
- Minimal damage at our house.
- Friends, neighbors and family who checked on us and offered helping hands.
- This little device, a portable power station, that we could
charge somewhere else and use to power electric and electronic devices at home.
(We charged it, several times, at an outdoor electrical outlet at our church
building.)
- Toilets! They work even when the power is out!
- Outdoor temperatures that topped out in the high 80s. It meant our non-airconditioned house didn’t get ridiculously hot.
