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I'm alive!


ChiefBaldEagle
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I don't know if anybody here was watching the news last thurs night but a EF3 tornado went through the town I live in at about 8 pm central. There are pictures all over the internet (I have a bunch) just google Mena Tornado photos. I am a member of the Masonic Lodge that was destroyed but luckily I was not at the building that night. The Eastern Star ladies (the ladies auxiliary of the Masons) were having a meeting and when the roof collapsed on them one of the ladies was crushed. We were lucky that there were so few deaths. There were only 3 deaths and about 30 injured. It was reported that the tornado was a 1/2 mile wide and traveled a little over 14 miles. They estimate over 200 homes destroyed, 200 with major damage and another 600 with damage.

 

I didn't suffer any damage other than not having elec and internet for three days. The disaster relief was fantastic here. This is a small town (about 5700) and most of the people here were born and raised here so we all knew everybody. As soon as the tornado had passed there was a sea of flashlights from people checking on their neighbors, chainsaws buzzing to free trapped people and flashing lights everywhere. The emergency response teams here in town were out almost before the dust settled.

 

The outpouring of volunteerism here was fantastic. There were disaster relief teams (from churches, civic organizations, private citizens) were from all over the region. I saw people and work crews from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri. When I went back out at daylight Fri morning there had to be 20 people at every house checking on people and making sure nobody else was trapped or any bodies were hidden. We have heard from Masonic Lodges as far away as Hawaii wanting to know what they could do. There were so many volunteers that they were asked to report to a central command for assignments so that they could be rotated out to relieve the tired ones. This whole town looked like a kicked over ant-hill.

 

Like my wife put it: "I don't think this is Kansas Toto" gif.gif

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Good to see your are OK

over 200 homes destroyed? that´t a shame in this crisis time

no matter where we live we all have nature problems we have some earth quakes from Mexicali

this remind me the tale of The Wizard of Oz

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if anybody is on facebook look for Ed Held I posted 3 albums of the damage. My mother lives 4 blocks from the path of the tornado. They said that not only does a tornado sound like a freight train this one sounded like 10 about to run over you! I have lived thru Hurricanes, floods, blizzards, duststorms, etc. and the damage caused by this tornado was worse. The last hurricane I survived (Lili on the Louisiana coast) destroyed the little town I was in but it was mostly trees downed with a few small tornados wrecking one or two houses. I had two go thru my yard - one took out a storage shed and the other tried to take my front porch. This tornado was much larger and meaner. Hurricanes may be larger and cause more damage but at least you had some warning. I was watching news and they said that this storm COULD produce a tornado and you might want to start taking precautions. At the same time my mother had called me to tell me that the tornado sirens were going off and it was already on the ground. So much for accurate predictions.

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