Drexel Tornado (?)

Last night was a bit...sleepless...to say the least! We lost electricity around 10:30 pm. My sister texted me at 11pm to say a tornado was heading my way. I was already in my bedroom closet (aka tornado shelter) with Charlie, Sophie, and Harley, bracing for the worst. When I saw a piece of siding blow off I already knew it was time to take cover!

We got through what I guess were a couple of "cells," according to my sister's texts. Still no electricity, but I opened the windows back up, checked on all the animals (thank goodness Paula is white--made it easy to see her and the others in the pasture in the dark) and went to bed.

3:30 am sent another strong storm through. No text updates--evidently sis was sleeping on the job (just kidding...), but it was just as strong and scary as the first. I fell asleep in my "shelter" until 4:30, then came back out and went to bed again.

The morning shed light on the damage. Roofing tiles lie scattered on my lawn. All our bird houses fell over and dead baby chicks were everywhere--it was sad.

All the domesticated animals faired very well. JJ and Laramie were nice and cozy in their new stalls. We were very lucky to have suffered minimal damage, but everyone around us had trees down, some on buildings and vehicles, carports thrown across the road, and barns completely collapsed. Here's a pic I snapped on my way into work once the road was cleared enough for me to leave home:
More pics when we get our electricity back. As much damage as there is I will be surprised if I get home and they have it fixed. There was a whole line of KCP&L trucks heading south as I was driving to work--I assume they were on their way to Drexel to begin the hard work of repairing all the lines.

Here is a news story on the damage in town: http://www.kmbc.com/video/19765198/

I feel so very, very lucky to have escaped yet another tornado (or hurricane force winds--whatever it was)! The Greensburg tornado came fairly close to our place out in Kansas and now this, which isn't nearly as devastating, but still scary nonetheless!