Thursday, June 12, 2008

Please, Mother Nature...

...Take a break already! We spent another evening in our unfinished basement while we were in a tornado warning for nearly 2 hours. Tornadoes touched down all around Lincoln, but none hit in the city. Thankfully our 3 sump-pumps kept up with the downpouring rain so our basement stayed dry. Our backyard turned into a pond, as it always does with heavy rains, plus we ended up with a river on the north side of the house and a flooded sidewalk with worms floating by, but all is well this morning. I'm guessing that our neighbors didn't fare as well because a truck with the words "Emergency Water Removal & Structural Drying" on the side of it was in their driveway when I left for work today. Unlike ours, their basement is finished so I imagine they have quite a mess.

I received an email from my sister-in-law today saying that one of the boy scouts that lost his life in last night's storm was from their city (Omaha), and a member of their church. He was only 13. I can't imagine how scared all of those young boys were. I was scared...and I was in a structurally-sound basement. I hope I never have to go through what they did, but if I do, I hope that I'm as brave as they were. I've been reading stories about how they put the skills they've learned to use and helped one another, from removing tree limbs off of fellow scouts to rescuing a ranger and his wife from beneath rubble. It's just amazing.

Please keep the children and their families in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days.

2 comments:

Hazel said...

I know, this makes me so sad. I feel so bad for all those families. I've been thinking about them and will continue to.

Unknown said...

I also feel really bad for the families. The surviving scouts were incredibly brave, given the circumstances.

We very rarely get tornadoes on this area, though smallish ones have been known to touch down and we get a lot of dust devils.

Our local hazard is earthquakes. We've had quite a storm of them going recently. Thought that we were out of the woods, until a coupe of stronger ones hit over the weekend.