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~ an eye witness account ~

The first thing that I would like to say is Thank God for my families life as well as my own. Secondly my Heart and Prayers go out to anyone ever affected by a tornado or any other disaster. So many things change in a matter of minutes that it is overwhelming and time consuming.

Someone asked me why I chose to call this tornadotails instead of tornadotales, my explanation is that, when I saw this very much alive creature aka tornado emerge it appeared to have a "tail" that drug along the ground obliterating everything in its path, leaving a tale to tell.

We have lived in this neighborhood since 1968 and know most all of our neighbors(over 25 are close friends and family), several of those close friends and family were struck as well. Most homes are 40-60 years old with only a handfull of new ones.

The day started out with clear skies and just a hint of bad weather. We mowed the grass, weed eated and were very proud of our early day accomplishments.

We traveled southwest 30 minutes away to my brothers home around noon and felt impending changes while we were there. One moment the air was sweltering, then a rush of cool air so cold you felt you needed a jacket. After leaving and returning home, my brother called a little after 4 and was asking how the weather was because at his home it was raining exceptionally hard and with very strong winds. At our home it was totally calm with very dark clouds approaching from the southwest. While waiting for our son to return from the grocer and our daughter and her family to arrive as they felt with impending weather our home would be safer. I had stepped outside and heard a constant rumbling sound like thunder but there was no lightening. I went in and brought my wife out so she could hear it, thats when we new something was very wrong. As soon as we stepped in the news was reporting a funnel on the ground about 3 miles southwest but our sirens were not blaring. I went to the top of a clearing from the house and saw the tornado in the distance. Our son came home as well as our daughters family within the next minute. Having no basement we took cover in the north part of our home(it is an earth contact that is surrounded there) pushing the couches between us and the wall with all the cushions on top. The I stayed posted at our back door thinking that I could protect ourselves from this.

When it finally came through it was enormous to see and I felt all of our lives would be lost. The funnel was wider than I could see in either direction with debris flying everywhere and was also larger than anything I`ve ever seen, I watched it up to 100 yards away. The noise was like a train, airplane engines and crashing all at the same time, it made our ears hurt. There was virtually no rain or hail just straight line winds, it only lasted less than a minute and when it was over, it was over. Read "Aftermath" then the report from NOAA describing the tornado under Chronological Events.

Realizing that our lives were spared and the inside of our house was intact we felt relieved, but after stepping outside we were devastated at the damage and we knew that God had definitely been with us.
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