Memorial Day 2024: Sarah's Tornado Begins It

It started with the tornado sirens blowing.

Twice.

I had just sat down to write yesterday's second post of the day when I received that video from Hawkeye Sarah and a one word text.

"Welp."

Welp, indeed. She and her family were preparing to drive from their home in Iowa City to ours and a line of tornadic storms had just reached them. Thus began a flurry of texts between us.

The tornado passed their home by less than a half mile but they were safe, thank goodness. Iowa City suffered some damage, but compared to other recent tornados in Iowa this spring, the city was fortunate.

Needless to say, I never finished that second post of the day - I had some errands to run and some cleaning to finish before they arrived. (They ran into more heavy storms on the way, including one as they pulled into town.)

The hay in the neighborhood hay field was baled and ready to be taken to the barn.

I don't know if it was picked up before the storm system blew through here; I hope so.

We laid in a supply of necessary snacks - always a priority because we will be playing games late into the night all weekend.

Sarah and her family met Tammo for the first time. They'd brought Blue and Rhett with them, and we were a little surprised that Blue accepted Tammo immediately. (Then again, look at that face. Of course she did; wouldn't you?)

We'd ordered pizza for dinner. Lukie helped carry the boxes in. (With some help from Cousin Trinity.)

The pizza pick-up crew. Trinity, Todd, Ian, and Lukie.

The games began right after dinner. The adults were still sitting around the dinner tables and chatting when Lukie piped up, "Aren't we going to play cards or a game or something??" (Craig, Todd, Vanessa, Curt, and Lisa.)

Curt, Lisa, Sarah, and Trinity.

Of course, we played Bank, a game that can have lots of people (regardless of age) playing all at the same time.

We had some very high rolling games!

Okay, I am hearing noises from the guest rooms and Blue, Rhett, and Tammo have all popped in to say hello. (Pepper got up with me and is by my feet as I type.)

Posting may be sporadic this weekend, but I'll do my best.

Stay 'tooned!

Tornados Make for a Long Night

I'm sitting here at the keyboard trying to write and keep my eyes open. Last night was a LONG night - intense tornados went through this part of the midwest and I was up late monitoring the storms as they barreled through.

Our family GroupMe chat was constantly beeping as family members were checking on each other and sharing news as to who had a tornado nearby and needed to find shelter. Hawkeye Sarah was right in the path of a huge wedge tornado that was dumping baseball sized hail. 

She took this screenshot of it and posted it in our GroupMe - it was five miles from her home and the news posted a list of its projected path. It was on a path to go right over her neighborhood. A second tornado was developing nearby but that one was going south of her, not coming straight at her like this one was.

Her home has a cinderblock safe room in the basement so she, Todd, and the dogs sheltered there while the tornado passed over them. Surprisingly, she had no damage, at least not that she could see.

While I was worrying about my daughter, she was worrying about hers. Trinity is a student there at the University of Iowa and she also drives for Cambus, a bus service for students and faculty. She was driving her route as the sirens went off so she pulled the bus over in front of one of the dormitories, ushered her riders out, and got them into the building.

Trin took a moment to snap a photo of the bus parked outside and post it on GroupMe. My phone lit up as family members were telling her to get away from those windows and to get into the basement.

While sheltering in the basement, Trina filled out her daily bus report. 

At that point, I needed a little levity! 

Her bus was fine when she came out of shelter. As for the rest of Iowa City/Coralville, we will know more as soon as the sun is up. Reports are that there is a lot of damage in Coralville.

After the tornados passed through Hawkeye Sarah's town I began watching what was happening around here. Several lines of tornadic storms were approaching us and soon there were several in the area, all of which seemed to be on track to go around us.

However, they were right on track to hit Brookston where Leslie and Rick live. They put an addition on their home a few years ago with a tornado shelter underneath it, so they climbed down into it as the sirens began blowing and one of the tornados came at them.

It's not deep enough to sit or stand - they have to lie down in it. Their internet went out with the storm so Leslie lost contact with news sources for the tornado, but she could still text so she asked me to keep them posted and to let them know when it was past them and safe to come out.

It was very late when I got to bed and I am moving slowly this morning. I've heard that south of town there was a lot of damage and other dribs and drabs of information, but the good news is that I have not heard of any fatalities in our area.

Tomorrow I'll be back on track here - Lisa went riding on Hokey! But for now, I am heading back to snooze a little more. Here's hoping other news from across the Midwest is as good as it appears to be from here.

What a night. March went out like a lion!

For a look at other tornados we've experienced, click this link or do a search on the blog to pull up several entries about tornados.