Microburst

Well I've been without a computer for several weeks now. Alot has happened and I need to get all caught up to date so I can journal the things that I'm feeling right now.

Back in August we had the craziest storm I have ever seen in my entire life. We had a mini Katrina rip through our neighborhood. It was insane. I was loading my kids in the car to take them to grandmas so Tyler & I could go out to dinner with some friends. Jarvis walked outside and said, "It's raining!" There was only a few drops so my big kids of course had to argue with him that it wasn't raining, it was sprinkling. I didn't even get out of the neighborhood before it was pouring. I had to stop right where I was along with about 20 other cars because we couldn't even see a couple feet in front of us. The winds were so extremely strong I almost thought my car was going to tip over. The rain looked like it was going 3 different directions. Cars had skidded and were facing the wrong way in their lanes. The kids started saying little prayers and crying to go back home. There were branches and hail hitting the windows. By the time I got brave enough to try to turn back home it felt like I was driving through the rubble of a natural disaster. Streets flooded. Roofs ripped off and laying all over the street. Trees ripped out of the ground and laying across cars. Power lines down and streets shut down. After it settled down we decided to throw everyone in Tyler's truck and check out the damage. My kids were traumatized and so scared to go back out.Tyler and John helped pull some trees out of the street. It was so nice to see the community and ward come out to help each other. Several of the men went out with our bishop to clean up the damage. I'm so grateful to know that we are surrounded by such great people who genuinely care and want to help.We heard so many stories of neighbors trampolines flying over fences and down the street. We saw several around the neighborhood that looked like this. Crazy. Apparently generic brand trampolines are pretty light. We got ours at a playground store and it didn't budge.Umm.. there is not supposed to be a lake right here.When we got home we inspected the damage on our house. We knew we lost some of the roof. Sherry and John watched it fly into the backyard. Shingles were everywhere. Here's some of the kiddos holding pieces of the roof. They still talk about the storm. Shyann gets nervous everytime it gets a little windy. It was crazy because this same afternoon the kids couldn't go to recess because it was a heat advisory day. And now it's hailing!?We lost roof down the whole side of the house. So every room on that side had water damage. Sherry's closet got soaked. They had to rip out carpet. The kids closet was also wet. And we had some damage downstairs.This is what the ceiling in our room looked like when we went to bed. The next morning the kids were getting dressed for school and started screaming. This is what I found. Holy Moly. Water plus roof all over our tv and computer! Good times. Tyler wasn't home so I yelled for John to come rescue my computer. For days we had these huge loud fans all over the house to dry it all out.Our whole neighborhood is covered in tarps. I never knew we could have so much damage so quickly. I've always felt safe from storms where we live. I have no desire to ever witness anything more intense. I am just so grateful that we didn't lose power and that everyone was safe.I never once thought about pulling out my video camera. But the missionaries caught a little bit of the action. Enjoy. This storm made history for our part of the valley.