Tornados suck

I called my parents last night, Do you know if those clouds were all we're supposed to get tonight? It didn't even RAIN.

I watched a front pass over us that looked like the first wall of a hurricane just before the sun popped out. Little did I know that as I was wondering where the storm went, a powerful tornado was blowing through my hometown in Wisconsin.

I'm still trying to piece together what happened from friends and family, but it seems to have started south of Council Grounds then picked up speed through the airport and across Hillside to the lake.

I grew up there. (Not just in Merrill, but right in the path at that orange circle. I lived half my life on Pa-Tray Lane.)

I have to laugh at the amount of video footage that's being posted to Facebook... leave it to Merrillites to forego safety for the sake of "journalism."

While the path of the storm seemed mostly rural, there were a lot of homes destroyed and damaged. One guy said he had just gotten to shelter when he looked up and saw sky - his house had been swiped right off the foundation. He thought there was no way they would survive the next few minutes.

And we're hearing stories of friends who lost houses and pets and vehicles. One is a family friend who barely got his daughter into the basement before the storm hit, sucking his house away along with their brand new puppy who'd decided to turn back up the steps. His truck is now in a swamp.

I just spoke to my Aunty Kritsy. She had me laughing so hard at how lucky they were... they'd gone to bed last night listening to the "wind" as it picked up and all the cars passing their house on their usually deserted country road. When she drove to work this morning, she noticed the tops of some of their trees were down, and further down the road, a whole swath of trees were gone, leaving a path through the woods at least 3/4 of a mile wide. The tornado had "hopped" over their house as they slept. Sheesh! I told her to sleep with her concrete boots on next time, just to be safe.

Businesses - one of which was a town staple for decades - were blown completely away or torn down to their metal skeletons.

I'm so sad. I find storms fascinating, but people are saying this one was a bohemoth that they'll be measuring using miles.

Here's video of the storm as it passed over Hwy 51 (just to the east of the lake) and appeared to rise back into itself.

I'm also grateful. This storm missed all of my family members and so far I've heard reports of damage to friends' homes but no injuries. My mother had just arrived home on Saturday after staying up in Merrill for over a week, so I'm especially grateful for that. My grandmother - who lives in town on the North side - only had a few things blown around on her porch, and I'm sure that'll be enough to keep her fretting to her card club buddies for the next week or so. I'm so glad nothing worse happened or she'd be inconsolable.

If anyone knows of a donation site or families who need children's items, etcetera, please let me know.

I've gotta stop Googling this stuff and take a nap. I stayed up so late last night worrying that I overslept my three alarms.