tornado

About two hours after we got home from going out Saturday night, this morning around 2:30 a.m. our neighborhood was hit by what appears to have been a tornado (much smaller than others that have occurred across the country). We woke up to extremely loud wind and rain. Suddenly it stopped, but the tornado siren started going off. We ran to the basement and we could tell from the TV that a small tornado had hit Omaha several miles from us. Our sirens turned off so we went up stairs and assumed all was fine.

However, the husband looked out the window and called me over. Our street was filled with siding from homes in our neighborhood  trees were uprooted, fences were demolished and air conditioners completely ripped off houses. We went outside and saw about 20 people cleaning stuff up. Apparently, a tornado went through our neighborhood. Our next door neighbors and the five or so houses south of them had large portions of siding ripped off the sides of their houses, windows blown out, etc.

Our house was barely even touched. I have dubbed this the “skinny tornado” because it was a very small, specific path. Thankfully, no one was badly hurt (some had been hurt by flying glass in their house) and we can only see a few houses with significant damage to their exteriors (one had almost their entire roof ripped off). We feel so blessed that the only damage we suffered was one bent fence post (it appears something flew into it) and about a 1 inch wide section of vinyl that is missing. We can pretty much see the exact path of the tornado through our neighborhood judging by the missing vinyl/roofing/fences etc. We had tree branches in our yard from the large trees several blocks away. My sister-in-law and her husband (who live 1 or 2 miles from us) were also able to escape any damage (there were some trees down in their neighborhood). We are so grateful that everyone is safe and that our home was safe from any damage. We will be thinking and praying for those that weren’t as fortunate.