I survived my first Tornado Alley severe storm! Yay!
Before I moved to Missouri, I loved thunderstorms...especially sleeping through them. However, now I worry about having my bedroom ceiling disappear while I sleep through storms here.
So, on Friday, I was woken up by loud claps of thunder. Matt was getting his daughter, Hayley ready for school, so I woke up and joined them in the living room to check on the storm. It seemed to get better and we thought that Hayley would be safer at school than in our house with no basement, so he went on his way to drop her off.
While he was gone, the storm got worse, our satellite went out, and we didn't have a radio. I opened the blinds so I can keep an eye on the storm, but I couldn't see a thing! The rain and wind was so strong, all I could see was solid gray...until tree branches from the neighbor's yard broke off and started hitting our house. Since I'm a little freaked out about Missouri storms, I started getting my things ready in case it got worse and I needed to go to the photography studio, which is pretty close and much safer than our house. Before I could even finish, the tornado sirens started blaring.
Not wasting a single second...I made up my mind that I was getting out of there! I put my shoes on, grabbed my phone, my purse and my laptop. That's when it hit me... I didn't have enough arms to take everything that I needed to take with me. I put down my laptop and looked at it, my camera with my new rented lens, and my cat. I'll tell you...it was like making Sophie's choice! I pushed the photographer in me aside, and threw my coat over my 15 pound cat and ran out the door.
It was like a scene from a movie. I could barely see a couple of feet in front of me. Tree limbs, trash cans, and I think even a couple of cows flew past my car on my way down the street. Despite the winds, flooding, and my nerves, I made it safely to my studio. Although it wasn't much dryer IN my studio than it was outside, I felt a bit safer.
In the meantime, Matt had been in his SUV in line waiting to drop Hayley off at school. He realized that although he was in gear with his foot planted on the brake, that the wind was pushing him backwards toward a van! Obviously, it was time to get out of there. Before too long, they had joined me at the studio.
Luckily, the storm passed soon after they got there. While we were cleaning up, I noticed that everyone who drove by had their window rolled down, with their head hanging out of the window looking beside the studio. I went outside to check it out, and this is what I saw:
The building across the street had collapsed. Talking about scary!
After life started to get back to normal, Matt had to leave for work. School had be called off early, so I got to hang out with Hayley all day. I had rented a new tilt/shift lens that I hadn't found a chance to use yet, so like any photographer would do, we went out to take pictures! I gave Hayley my back-up camera, a Canon 20D and a 50mm 1.8 lens and we went out shooting!
Here's what we came up with:
Hayley's image
There were so much debris in the road, they got serious about the clean-up!
Our beaver friends came out to play...
Just down the street from the studio...
The city park...
The shot that Hayley got in the above picture... (Oh, and don't judge me, I was barely awake! haha)
Another one of Hayley's masterpieces...where the Subway sign used to be before the storm.
So...thats it! My first storm story. I don't think I'll get used to this weather, so stay tuned for more blogs like these!
