Count Your Blessings...

Well, like my friends & family in my original Northeast Missouri area, we too got hit by bad storms and tornadoes last night. We apparently had one on the ground about 1 mile from our house. We didn't know that though. Being in a rural area, there are no storm sirens around us. We knew there was really heavy wind/rain/hail, but didn't know the true extent of the damage until later.

Of course, in our area, it hit about 7:30-7:45 pm, and that is the time that my husband is usually leaving the house to head into work. I tried to get him to wait around and see if it would die down some, but he wouldn't wait. So, he left our house about 7:45 pm.

About 7:50 I get a call on my cell phone from him, you can tell he is obviously shook up, and that is just not like him, and he said, "it's bad out here, I really messed up". I said, "what do you mean?" He said, "I just wrecked dad's truck." I said, "where are you?" He said, "I'm by Andy Johnson place" (which put him approximately 1 mile from the house - if that). I said, "are you hurt?" He said, "no, just a few scratches, but I'm OK." I said, "do you want me to come down there?" He said, "no, I don't want you to leave the house, just call for help." He said that there were power lines running thru the truck, and I told him no matter what, don't get out of the truck, I'll call for help.

I had to hang up with him and call and report his accident to 911, as I couldn't use the home phones since the power was already out by this time. So, I called at 7:53 and reported his accident.

I really didn't have a clear picture in my mind of what had taken place. Whether he had hit a pole and knocked some lines down or what. Later I found out, that the path the tornado had taken was straight down that road, and it had taken down a string of approximately 12 poles. Two electrical companies overlap thru that particular area: Heartland (lines run North & South) and Westar (lines run East & West). Heartland's lines had went down, and in the process and the weight of the poles coming down had brought down Westar's as well. As it turns out, the lines were already down across the road, and he was just unlucky enough to be the 1st one thru that area and therefore, he hit the downed line(s) before he ever saw them since it was still very heavily raining/hailing.

Approximately 10pm, they finally had him out of the truck. The on-scene fire personnel, said they didn't have the authority to tell him to jump out of the truck, but one of the electrical workers standing nearby asked him if he thought he could get out of the back sliding glass window. James said I can if you tell me to. The worker told him, then if you can get out, and then jump clear of the truck without touching any of the downed lines, then go ahead, so that is what he did.

It took a while due to the downed lines to get the truck loose and all the reports filled out. Even though this was about 1 mile from the house, it still took quite some time. James & his parents finally pulled in along with the tow-truck (the truck is setting behind our house until the insurance company comes for it) at almost 2am. So, it was a very long night. I didn't expect the power back on anytime soon, but to my surprise, it kicked back on around 5:30am.

Obviously, the truck is a total loss, but by the grace of God and a pure miracle, James is fine. Like I said, he has a few scratches, but other than that, he had no injuries. I'm definitely counting our blessings today!!!