A Tennessee Tragedy

Well folks, if you haven't already heard, we got one heck of a nasty storm last night. For the first time since moving to Nashville, I got to hear the tornado sirens blaring from outside the house, and let me tell you, they are not a comforting sound. I could tell when I was heading off to work yesterday morning that we were probably going to get a storm, only cause it was so humid outside and close to 70 degrees. Not exactly your typical winter weather. Sure enough by the afternoon, the talk around the office was of the coming storms and to stay safe at home that night. Thankfully, and I mean THANK GOD, Jason was off from work last night and home with me. I would have been a nervous wreck if he wasn't there to hold my hand, literally. We were sitting at home watching American Idol when the news interrupted and warned us of the coming storms and with them the threat of tornados. We didn't really think to much of it, till I noticed that the red area on the Tennessee map in the left hand corner of the screen was inching toward Nashville. So we finally flipped over to the local news and watched intently as many counties reported tornado touchdowns, severe weather damage, destroyed homes and expected arrival times of the storm heading our way. For us, it was more built up expectation than anything else - other than some quite frightening thunder and lightening, and a power outage that lasted half the night, our neighborhood was relatively untouched. But others were not so fortunate. One friend from work had the roof of her garage ripped off from the wind alone. It was a nightmare of a storm and destroyed many homes throughout a number of states. Hopefully, the last storm we'll have for quite a while! But thank you to everyone who's called and left us messages that you were praying for us, we very much appreciate it! Please continue to pray for other families in our city during this horrible time. God bless. (Check out the lightening reflected in this Nashville building downtown!)


February 2008 tornado outbreak
(From Wikipedia article)

The February 2008 tornado outbreak, also known as the Super Tuesday tornado outbreak, was a deadly tornado outbreak affecting the Southern United States and the lower Ohio Valley from February 5–6, 2008.

The event began on Super Tuesday, while 24 U.S. states were holding primary elections and caucuses for both Democratic Party and Republican Party presidential candidates for the upcoming 2008 United States presidential election. Missiouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Tennessee are states among the affected regions where primaries were held. The approaching of the severe weather forced some polls to be closed in advance.

At least 93 tornadoes have been reported. The outbreak has produced several destructive tornadoes in heavily populated areas, most notably in the Memphis metropolitan area, in Jackson, Tennessee and the northeastern end of the Nashville metropolitan area. Reports suggest that at least 57 people have been killed in the outbreak by severe weather (at least 56 by tornadoes) across five states and 19 counties, with hundreds of others injured. Several other unconfirmed reports of fatalities have come in as well and those numbers may increase or decrease as new reports come in. The outbreak is the deadliest in the US since the May 31, 1985 outbreak that killed 76 across Ohio and Pennsylvania (and also killed 12 in Ontario, Canada). It was also the deadliest tornado outbreak in Kentucky since the 1974 Super Outbreak. In Arkansas, the 13 fatalities is the most since 25 were killed during the Benton, Arkansas Tornado Outbreak on March 1, 1997.