We survived a tornado...

That sounds kind of dramatic. Given the fact that the damage to our home is minimal, and our neighborhood fared very well, it seems crazy to say we survived a tornado. But it's the truth. I believe by the time it got to us it was actually no longer on the ground, because it was half a mile wide (at a minimum), so the fact that we have minimal damage just doesn't seem possible. So, here are some photos for you guys of our area.

The Tornado as it first enters the city.  I did not take this photo, this is actually a screenshot from video shot by a storm chaser.  I am not sure where it originated, so I can't properly credit it, but want to make it clear I didn't take it, and am not claiming it as my own property

Damage about one and half blocks from our house - hardest hit area in our neighborhood.

Damage to the park located right next to our neighborhood.  This is directly across the street from the previous picture, and is also less than a mile from our house. 

Look closely, that tree is completely uprooted.  This is about half a block from our house. 

Damage to the gas station located at the nearest major intersection to us.  You can see them working on one of the three power lines that were taken out.

Apartment complex just up the street from the gas station.

Our backyard.  It's hard to tell from this angle, but the fence is leaning severely and is very wobbly in several places.  It also took out our window well cover - it was blown up against the fence at the back of this photo.

Our back porch the day after, before clean up.  That is our gas grill in the background.

Our gas grill, completely blown over.  This doesn't seem that impressive, but considering it's gone through 70-80 MPH straight line winds and hasn't moved an inch, something big got a hold of it.

(Sorry, Blogger decided it would not let me caption that last photo, no matter how hard I tried!)

I would have a taken pictures of the damage in our front yard, which mostly consisted of large branches belonging to trees that are not ours all over the yard and porch, but our fantastic neighbors cleaned all that up for us while we were taking our food to a working fridge.  We are without power and they are estimating 1-2 days before we get power back in our neighborhood.  We have one or two shingles missing off our roof, so we will call insurance and have them come inspect it to make sure that there is not additional damage we are not seeing, or don't know to look for.  Hopefully there is nothing.

We are incredibly thankful that we came through this as unscathed as we did.  We were hunkered down in our basement, as protected as we could make ourselves.  When it got to the point that the tornado was headed for us we put the dog in her kennel, pulled Miss Sunshine in with us (she was not pleased, and wanted to go to bed in her bed - upstairs) (Monster Boy was at his dad's house on the other side of town, out of the path of the tornado, thankfully) and covered up with cushions and watched as much as we could until the power went out.  Shortly after the power went out, we heard lots of loud hail and rain, and then sudden silence.  Daddy Mac and I looked at each other, and right at that moment heard a loud WHOOSH.  A lot of people talk about it sounding like a train, but that is not what we heard, but we definitely heard it.  It was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life, but we survived.