Twisted

Of course the big news around here is the line of thunderstorms and tornadoes that came through Illinois and Indiana, weakening a bit before they hit Ohio.  Kokomo did get a direct hit with a tornado, and I've seen a few photos of the funnel clouds nearby.  Other areas in town probably got damaged by straight line winds, too, as we had wind gusts over 85 mph here, and over 100 mph in some places not far from here.  We're under a state of emergency until 6 a.m. tomorrow, schools in town are closed for tomorrow, and damage is very extensive in town.  A mall shop's windows were blown out, signs blown down, a bank was flattened, Steve's childhood neighborhood was reduced to matchsticks, cars, vans and trucks are upside down, lights bent/fallen down, businesses torn apart, and there's a part of a house sitting in the middle of the road not far from our house.  Glenndale Airport took a hit as well.  Hangar doors and at least one hangar are damaged, Ron's airplane is damaged, the barn, their house has damage, the large pine tree by Chuck's house is down, and a ton of trees in Ron & Michelle's yard are snapped off.  There's debris all over, and the power is out.  Power was out for around 50,000 people, I think it's still out for 35,000 or so now.  It's a pretty big mess around here.

I don't know how Kokomo Airport is, haven't heard anything yet and we'll go check tomorrow when it's daylight (and the ban on travel is lifted).  Our house is fine.  The worst of it sure wasn't far from us, but it did miss us.  We went next door to the house with the basement for awhile, but didn't end up needing to use it.  As fast as this system was moving though, anyone who wasn't in a shelter was in trouble by the time they saw it coming.  It's amazing that I haven't heard of anyone killed or severely injured.  If this was a work day instead of a Sunday, people would have been in all of those businesses that were flattened, and looking at them, I can't imagine it would have ended well.  Of course some of the homes are pretty bad too; I don't know if they were occupied or not.

We watched the storms coming from the time they were over in Illinois causing damage.  We could tell it wasn't pretty.  Kaylee was supposed to volunteer to help with the play, which was still "on" even with the weather, and the time she was supposed to come help was the same time that the storms were supposed to hit.  So we ran the Suburban out to Kokomo Airport to put it in a hangar so we wouldn't have any vehicles left unprotected outside, and on the way home decided not to drop her off at the play place based on what we were hearing about touchdowns and rotations.   We came home, corralled the cats, then went next door for a few minutes until we could tell the worst was past us.  Steve then drove Kaylee out to help with the play clean-up, but the school had lost power, so they decided not to clean up then, and we both went back out to pick her back up.  The damage on our route wasn't all that much, so we didn't really know how bad it was until we got home and started seeing the photos on Facebook and the local paper and news.  A lot of Kokomo really is a mess, unfortunately...and it really is amazing that nobody that I know of was seriously injured or killed.

Here are our local paper's photos, if you can see these.

I am better today.  Still not myself, tire easily, head still a little full, but better.  Sleeping in and then taking another nap today helped.

Kaylee was up in her room and I heard her call for me, "Mommy, help me!"  I thought she was just whining about something, but as I got closer I could hear she was crying.  I got up there, and she's leaning on her bed, bawling, and says "I sat on a toothpick and it's sticking out of my leg!"  So I went around to her backside, and sure enough, she had a green toothpick sticking out of the back of her pants/butt/leg.  I had her lie face down on her bed, Steve came in, we determined that it was actually embedded in her leg but not super deep.  So I held her down while he sneak yanked it out.  It wasn't super deep, but it was deep enough to bleed a little and hurt like nuts, and it's in a most unhandy location, being right where it hurts to walk or wear pants or underclothing.  I doctored it up with some cream and a bandaid, but she's limping around a little bit. Steve couldn't stop laughing at her, for having a toothpick sticking out of her butt, which did not amuse her for awhile, but now she's doing better with her sense of humor on it.  ;)

Kaylee got distracted by my feet.  She noticed I had holes in my sock.  This led her to pull off my sock, which showed her that my foot was kind of dry and rough.  So she got lotion and put it on my feet.  This led her to look at my toes, which haven't been painted in awhile.  So she got the nail polish out, and decided to file a couple of toenails into better shape.  Then she painted them, and covered my feet with more lotion.  I say "So, are you going to do pedicures when you grow up?"  She said "No, I don't like feet."  I said "But you were just working on mine!"  She said "Yeah, I know.  They bugged me.  They needed help.  But I still don't like feet."  Sometimes it's handy to have a slightly OCD daughter who gets focused on a project whether it needs to be accomplished or not.  ;)