Spared

I am so thankful to be alive today! Last night I heard and saw a tornado pass over my house...

About 5:30 last night, the tornado sirens went off. I was home alone when my sister, the "weather woman" called to warn me, but we just laughed about it and shrugged it off.

A few minutes later I was not laughing anymore. I turned on the news just to check the warnings, and it said, "The tornado is headed right for Dexter, MI. Take cover immediately." I kept checking the windows looking worriedly at the quickly blackening sky. When I heard the faint sound of the tornado roar in the feild/lake in front of our house, I headed for cover.

We have a 2 story house, but no basement. The safest place in our house is a concrete enclosed creepy crawl space under our porch. I sad huddled in the corner there, constantly talking to my mom, dad and sister on the phone. My dad was on his way home from work and saw it coming down the road. My mom was still in town. I could hear the storm worsening, the violent wind swirling around. I'd forgotten in the panic of taking cover to close the windows in the house! I knew it would make a horrible mess! Later, my dad said that it was actually a good thing that the windows were open because if everything was closed up, the pressure could have blown out the windows.

From under the porch I could hear what I thought was things flying around the house. I heard sounds that sounded like the front door bursting open and dishes falling off the shelves. It turned out to only be the fierce 1-1 1/2 hail hitting the glass doors. Thankfully my car only came out with three small dents. Pretty unbelievable.

I was on the phone with my mom when the tornado passed over the house. I screamed, "Mom, it's coming! It's coming! IT'S HERE!!!" My poor mom couldn't do anything about it! She probably thought I was going to get blown away! Well, I thought I was too! I prayed, hard. That was the most scared I had ever been, listening to the horrifying "train" tornado sound over my house, hearing the house popping and cracking and things flying around. I didn't know what I would find when I walked out of the porch. I was afraid the house would collapse and I would be stuck. Scary.

The train sound gradually got farther and farther away and I realized it had only passed by, not hit our house. The house diagonal from ours was hit and the next neighboorhood over was also hit, but it just bounced right over ours! Thirteen homes in my town were flattened and 100 had serious damage. Amazingly there were no deaths! Surveying the damage around town this morning was awful. Some homes are totally wiped out, some are without roofs, some without their second stories and enormous uprooted trees make some streets unpassable.

My dad says we will probably be without power for the next few days. As I went out this morning we saw a caravan of 20 electrical trucks, all coming down our road to help with the damage. It's an awful situation that is going to take a long time to clean up, but it's cool to see the community come together and help each other. We can't see any news because of the power outage, but I guess it's been all over the local and even national news.

The sun rose this morning as if nothing had happened. As the fog lifted, the evidence of the tornado sunk it. Ironically, my mom, sister and I are headed for Mexico tonight. We feel guilty leaving the war-zone of Dexter.

I keep thinking, wow, God must have something big to do through my life! He has protected me so much in the past few years when various times, things could have turned out so badly! Today I am counting my blessings!