We're Good

We are fine, everyone we know personally is fine and our things are fine.  Yesterday was a crazy tornado day in OK but, it seems, most Oklahomans heard what was predicted and were as prepared as they could be.  A lot of homes were lost and several lives were lost and I can't read the news without a lump in my throat.  So far today I have only heard of one co-worker who lost everything.  I still haven't heard what category they are calling the tornadoes but there were several and they were big.  Most of the businesses in town sent their employees home which, to my knowledge, has never happened before yesterday.  Around 1:00 news stations began telling people to get prepared for the storms that would arrive around 5.  Between leaving work early to prepare for a tornado and seeing a veteran Oklahoma meteorologist look into the camera and say 'get under ground or get out of the way', well, I will say I was slightly shaken.  In 11 years of tornado seasons, I have never felt that way.  I totally lost track of time after I left work around 2:45 but I had exactly enough time to run home, pack a bag, jump in the car with Brandon, meet his family (who had Peyton) and go to the storm shelter at the mall.  Sometime around 5:20 (I think) a tornado hit Piedmont which is about 15 miles away from where we were.  As it turns out, I believe our house only recieved heavy rain.  If we got hail it didn't damage anything.  So it turns out we could have watched everything from our couch (as long as we were out of traffic- thank goodness we left early!!)  But I'm still glad we were underground in a shelter with 300 other people.  It was cramped, it was hot, it was loud and I knew all of that going in.  But I couldn't NOT go.  And I will say that my first experience in a public shelter wasn't all bad.  A mall food court is a pretty good place to be during a storm as long as it is underground.  My friends who were in other shelters were also cramped, hot & uncomfortable but at least we had chick-fil-a!  The one and only problem with going to a shelter is that you don't know what's coming.  I take a lot of comfort (rationally or otherwise) in knowing where the tornado is and what direction it is moving.  But knowing that an F4 or 5 is 2 blocks away and headed straight for me while I wait in a bathtub ... I didn't think that would give me a lot of comfort.   And as it turns out, listening to people at work who did watch TV were not as comforted as usual because there were so many tornadoes the weathermen could not keep up with updating on where they were.  Moore seems to have been mostly spared as well.  Brandon worried about his restaurant and employees but they were all okay as well.  So today we are thankful that, once again, we were out of harms way & talking about how crazy the tornadoes were last night.