Hi all-

It's been a hell of a couple days here in IA. My soon-to-be mother-in-law lives up in Parkersburg, the town hardest hit by the tornadoes yesterday. Her house was completely destroyed, along with most of her belongings, but she (thankfully) came out with no injuries.

Half of this town is completely destroyed. The girl and I went up there immediately after, and the pictures they show do not do the damage justice. We had to walk into town from about a mile out, and the entire south side of town is reduced to rubble. Every house, tree, and car is either damaged or destroyed. There were apparently 4 fatalities, which is pretty damned amazing considering how flattened everything is.

We salvaged what we could today, and it's amazing what the wind does to a house. The ground floor of her house held, and so did the kitchen walls, but that's it. The basement is intact, but the garage is gone. The tornado drug her car out of the garage and into the drive way. The funny thing is, none of the garage debris is anywhere close to be found.

Fire departments and emergency workers from 50 miles away are coming in to help with clean-up efforts, and the fire dept. says there won't be any power for a month.

My mother in law is a Methodist Minister, so she is lucky that she has parishioners that are willing to take care of her, but there are many that have lost their homes too.

The whole situation is really unreal. It has really put life into perspective for me- As we picked up the pieces it really starts to hit you that it's all gone, but you look around, and everyone else is in the same boat. But through it all the people there just help each other as best they can, which is almost inspiring.

Anyway, the whole town could use your prayers, my family, the rescue workers, and all the other families that have lost everything, and I hope there aren't any other families affected here on TOC- It's a tragedy, but human nature is neat in the fact that no matter what, we find a way to pick up and carry on.

You never really realize what the phrase "losing everything" means until you see what losing everything looks like. It is completely surreal.

I'll post some pics soon, the girl is still up there, I came down to my folks for the night to get more clothes and stuff, and will be going back tomorrow.

For now, I'll share a couple things that I found interesting.

The master bedroom was completely gone, nowhere to be found. The carpet was ripped clean off the tack strips, and I found it in the bathtub.

Most of the closets survived. The only one that didn't (unfortunately) had Emily's wedding dress from France in it- haven't found that one yet-

I found a steel drawer front that was made out of 10 gauge steel- it's a school desk drawer, as the school is right next door. It was bent and twisted like aluminum foil- Amazing the strength of the wind.

A lot of the trees have the bark stripped from them- It's really an odd thing to see.

There were some very fragile items that escaped unharmed, but were found out in the yard, yet things like the bedroom furniture and the living room couch aren't anywhere to be found.

I also found the computer. This was really interesting. It was ripped open, and the heatsink was ripped clean off the processor. I found the monitor cable still attached to the mobo connector, ripped clean out of the computer, with the trim plate attached, but the monitor cannot be located. Very interesting-

Anyway, sorry for the book, but please say a prayer for the people that have lost all they own to this terrible storm.

Regards,
Andrew

I will definitely say a prayer for you guys. I live in Cherokee county, GA and last week we had some tornados pass through. Luckily the worst hit areas missed me by a couple of miles. No damage to the house or cars but lot of trees down on my road (and in my yard). A lady that I work with was not so fortunate; her house was damaged and both family cars were destroyed. She could definitely use some prayers as well.

Andrew Hopkins

You got it.

Norm

Sorry to hear the news...my prayers are with you guys.

How's things going? I couldn't imagine being in that situation and hope I never have to.

TOC Admin
Brando

Well, things are better.

I'll upload some pics tonite.

We got all her stuff we could salvage out of the house two days after it happened. She is so busy with the church now she barely has time to rest, but that's the way she likes to be. She is better off than most, because she has another house in the neighboring town that she will be living in. Her insurance cut her a check for her full policy amount, no questions asked.

Emily got her new wedding dress this week. The bridal store took 50 percent off of the dress to help us out, which was simply amazing. My boss gave us 500 dollars to put towards it, so it has been replaced for little out of pocket expense. It might not be from France, but she says she likes it a lot, so that's all that matters.

However, now my parent's house is at risk of being in the floods here in IA. They have their house sandbagged, but the river isn't supposed to crest for another 3 days, so I don't know what is going to happen.

Damned weather anyway.

So things are going ok, but like anything else, new obstacles are presenting themselves.

Andrew