Weathering the Storm

You wouldn't know it by this picture but yesterday afternoon we had a huge storm come through Marshall.

I had been in Sioux Falls for most of the day and was heading home when I got a call from my co-worker saying that there were tornado warnings in our area.

I called Isaac and told him to get Gabriel and his cousin Casey and head to the basement.  I was calling my mom and trying to get ahold of Dominic. At the time the news was saying that a very severe storm was going through Tyler where Dominic works.

I tried to call him but he wouldn't answer his phone.

So then I tried Isaac again and he wouldn't answer. The cell and the house phone just rang and rang.

Talk about freaking out!! I was beside myself. Here I had left them and a huge storm was headed their way and I couldn't even call to see if they were ok.

As I got closer to Marshall I started seeing the damage along Hwy 23. Trees sheered off and buildings in a heap.

Finally after 20 frantic minutes of calling every number I could I finally got through to Isaac and Dominic and knew they were ok. The storm had passed and it sounded like there was a mess everywhere.

This is the view down our street this morning. Everyone is working hard to clean up and make piles of branches and leaves at the curbs.

Here is one of our piles. The tree behind has a couple of branches that are broken but stuck up in the tree. Dominic and his brother Ben are outside right now trying to figure out how to reach them.

Pray for them please....these kind of things never go well!

This is behind our house - it isn't our tree but it looks from our back porch that we have a row of bushes in the back....

This was completly up-rooted. We drove to Walmart last night and there are trees like this all over town. Near the cemetary there are at least 4 big evergreens toppled over like this. It is sad how many trees we lost here yesterday afternoon.

But overall I am just grateful that we are all safe and that there wasn't any significant damage. Let's hope this is the last storm of the summer like this one! Hope you have a safe and Happy 4th of July!!