Tornado!!

The weekend of banquet my brother Troy and his family were here visiting from Chicago so our kids went to my parents house the evening of banquet to hang out with the family and play with their cousins.  After we got the kitchen and gym cleaned up we headed to my parents house to pick up the kiddos.  While driving there the sky was dark and it was lightening like crazy.  Since we had been in the school we were unaware of what the weather was suppose to do but it looked as though we were going to be getting a thunderstorm.  Shortly after we got to my parents house it started blowing and raining really hard.  Then it started hailing.  I asked my dad if we could put our vehicle in the pole barn so he got the key and unlocked the barn.  It was hailing so bad, I couldn't see where I was even going but I did get it in there without any damage.  Have you ever been in a tin roofed building when it's hailing?  I had to plug my ears because it was so loud!!  We waited for the hail to stop but we could tell the hail stones were getting bigger instead of stopping.  So we continued to wait until it slowed down some.  Then we made a mad dash for the house.  When we got in the house, everyone was in the basement because of a tornado warning.  What?  If any of you know Jeff, typically, he would be outside watching something like this happen (yes, he would love being a storm chaser) but since we were not home, he was trying to call his dad to make sure the electricity was still on at our farm.  Electricity on a farm with livestock is very critical since the ventilation (fans) in the hog sheds are run by electricity.  So if the hog sheds go without proper ventilation for very long the livestock can die within a matter of 30 minutes.  Now, this depends on the weather also, extremely hot & humid or cooler.  On this particular night it wasn't very hot so they could go without proper ventilation for a longer period of time.  Anyway, we made it back upstairs and Jeff got a hold of his dad and the storm had not reached our farm yet so we settled in to visit a little longer with my family until the electricity went off at my parents house.  My mom started lighting candles but some of the little children were scared so they went back to the basement.  In the mean time Jeff's dad had called and said the electricity had went off at our place.  Jeff had drove seperately so Josh and him drove home (actually if you know Jeff, he flew home :) ).  I wanted to stay at my parents and ride this storm out so I could visit with my family.  Eventually, everyone was back in my parents basement.  It was really pretty special because while we were all in one bedroom we started singing songs to help the kids get their minds off of the storm.  Then the telephone rang. Oh no!  Who could be calling my parents?  Well, I had a pretty good idea that it would be Jeff and sure enough it was.  Jeff wasn't home yet but he called to tell me that his dad had just called and said that the windows were breaking out of their house and that our hog shed roof had blown off and he wanted me to come home NOW!  I was scared!  My family offered to keep the kids and they could bring them out later so I took them up on the offer and headed for home.  I didn't know what kind of a disaster I was going to see when I got home but thank God none of our windows were broken.  Then I looked out into our back yard and there was the farrowing house roof 5-10 feet from the back door.

These pictures were taken the next morning.

This is what I saw when I looked out the kitchen window.

Thank you Jesus that it didn't hit the house.  Josh greeted me with a hug!  He was pretty shook up also.  He hung out with me while Jeff hooked up the generators.  I had a lot of food and banquet things to put away so Josh helped me unpack the vehicle.  We went to look at the farrowing house and I couldn't believe my eyes.

It's amazing what weather can do.  This building had mama pigs with her piggies in it so they had to move them all out into another building.  We had quite the crew of men helping with this job.  Thanks to all who helped!  In the meantime, I called my parents to let them know what was happening here on the farm.  Now let me back up a little bit.  When I got to my parents house right after banquet, Zech asked me if I had any asthma medicine in the vehicle.  Of course I didn't but he knew he needed some.  So, when I called my parents to let them know what was happening here on the farm, Katelyn wanted to talk with me.  She said that Zech was coughing a lot and wasn't doing good at all (coughing and labored breathing) so I talked to my mom and asked them to bring the kids home.  I knew they would want to know what was happening here as well.  So my dad and brother Tim brought the kids home about 11:30 p.m. and stayed to help with the hogs.  When Zech got in the house he was NOT doing well at all.  He coughed continually and could not get his breath.  That is one of the scariest things for me and I'm sure it is for him as well.  I had to give him two nebulizer treatments back to back which you aren't suppose to do but I can, in an emergency situation which was what we were in.  He settled down a little bit but about one hour later he was needing another neb. treatment.  The instructions on the medicine say to give every 4-6 hours as needed but he just couldn't wait any longer for the treatment so I gave him another one.  He finally fell asleep and was resting comfortably so I went outside to see if I could help in any way with the hogs but there was enough help so I went inside to keep an eye on Zech.  Jeff came in about 2 a.m. and he was as done as he was going to be for the night or should I say morning.  We talked for a little while and then at 2:30 Zech woke up coughing again pretty intently so I gave another neb. treatment.  I fell asleep around 2:45 a.m. and slept until 3:15 when Zech woke up in total distress.  That was when I decided that he had to go to the ER.  They took X-rays and possibly seen some pneumonia so treated him with an anti-biotic and steroids (which I had already started at home).  While in the ER we were visiting with a guy who is on the Emergency Management Team for Mahaska County.  I told him what had happened on our farm and he wanted to come out after 7 a.m. to take pictures of the damage so he could send it in to the National Weather Service for them to assess the damages and whatever else they do.  (It was declared a EF1 tornado).  Zech and I got home from the ER at 5 a.m. and went to my bed to finally get some sleep.  At 7:15 Zech woke up needing another neb. treatment.  He had a rough morning until about noon when the steroids finally kicked in.  He took a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and I tried to rest while he was resting but that never seemed to go as planned. We didn't clean up our yard Sunday because Jeff's dad had a corn bin roof blow off and they loaded that corn into semi's all day.  On Monday morning we had close friends and church friends come and help pick up the mess on our yard.  Family and friends came on Wednesday afternoon to help pick up all the debris that had blown out into the fields.  We want to thank everyone who came to help with the clean-up.  We couldn't have done it without your help!  It's humbling to know that when a disaster strikes, people are so willing to come and help wherever they are needed.  Although we wish we hadn't experienced this, we are so thankful that no one was hurt.  It could have been a lot worse and everything we lost is replaceable.  We are slowing getting back to normal.  Jeff has been busy with field work this week so I haven't seen a whole lot of him.  I will now try and get caught up on blogging my recipes.

Four days after the tornado, we saw a beautiful double rainbow in the western sky.  Just a wonderful reminder of God's faithful covenant to us!