Tornado

So apparently we moved to Virginia to come in close contact with a tornado. We seriously missed it by 5-10 minutes on the highway. I left work at 4 with my car pool buddy Michael in order to get to a class at the gym at 5. The first sign of the tornado was that we could actually smell tree bark and then we saw trees ripped down and branches ripped from trunks. Our cell phones weren't working hardly at all and they put another warning while we were on the highway. Michael's wife eventually called and said the tornado near us and then Driver and Shoulder's Hill road...both right near our house. Luckily Ryan next door was home and so I called him to see how the house was and he said the wind was horrible but that we didn't get hit.

We got stopped on the highway for over an hour and a half only to get turned around by the police at the next place you could do a u-turn. Turns out that just up the road a car was smashed and tossed like a soda can into the tree line off the highway.

We then had to go around to a road near the hospital where the ER section was heavily damaged. There were several neighborhoods where houses & businesses were leveled. There were people parked along the road because they had to get out and walk to their houses. There was so much debris, power lines, and gas line issues that they couldn't let people drive and in some cases even get to their houses at all.

We finally got home 3 hours later. After talking with all of our friends and watching the news...it appears it hit up the road from my work, then downtown by the hospital, jumped into Driver which is a neighborhood about 4 miles from our house where it leveled some houses and businesses. Then it jumped our friend Jim and Fran's neighborhood and touched down for a second 2 neighborhoods over in Bayberry Cove. We have 3 friends who live there...Mike & Lisa took cover because they could hear it. It looks like it touched down in our friend Cheryl's backyard, across the street from Mike and Lisa...And then it mangled some power lines and trees in the next neighborhood over badly and then skipped us...I have no idea how...

The drive home was crazy, the devastation is astounding...it looks like pictures out of Kansas when you see the news.

There is a video of tornado if you happen to see it on the national news...Of the tornado near a farm house with a big yard and a white picket fence all around the perimeter...that is about 2 miles from our house.

Below is a link to a local website. The damage to our area isn't even close to as bad as it was at the hospital, about a 20 minute drive away. (The hospital is between my work and our house).

Scroll to the middle of the page & there is a "view storm photos"...lots of pics from near our neighborhood, but we weren't hit at all compared to the other part of town.

If you see these places labeled in the pictures, here's where they are:

The picture of the tornado from highway 58...That's the highway I drive on...I would guess we were about 5-10 minutes right behind this picture.

Bayberry Cove - 2 neighborhoods over from us.

Belmont Park - the neighborhood across from ours.

http://www.wvec.com/index.html

we are still waiting to hear how a couple of people from work fared. My former boss, Sandi, from Target had her neighborhood get hit badly as they live right behind the hospital..Sounds like her house is one of the only ones standing...it's terribly sad.

Thanks for all of the calls tonight...word got to the national news fast...we appreciate everyone reaching out to us. Also thinking about everyone back in Grundy with the rain and damage to basements...hope you are all faring better this week.

Love,
A