Tornado zone
#1
So some of you know that I live in Windsor, CO (the site of the freak tornado that occurred on Thursday and wiped out a good chunk of the town).

I recently had power and then internet restored to the house so I figured I'd pop in here and leave a little update for the interested.

First off, tornadoes are probably old hat to people in some parts of the U.S. Here in Colorado, we might get little baby tornadoes from time to time, but they are just kind of cute and cool I would imagine (I've never actually seen one). This one wasn't so cute.

So we lost our fence, our trampoline enclosure, one window, and my grill has some holes punched in it from the golf ball and baseball sized hail, but we're doing fine. It's the first (and likely the last) time that I was actually glad I live in a newer neighborhood that doesn't yet have large trees. In the older parts of town that weren't in the direct path, most of the damage was done by uprooted or fractured trees.

Those who lived about a half a mile north of my house didn't fare so well.

I spent all of today helping organize part of and participating in a cleanup effort (which will continue for at least a couple more days). Three families that I am friends with lost their homes completely (among many others I don't know). I'm exhausted (and my lungs still feel full of fiberglass... that insulation is coating everything!). It's hard to sleep with helicopters constantly buzzing the house. A friend (one of the three) is suffering from some torn muscles since he apparently ripped something in an andrenaline-fed rush to dig out the neighbor kids from their basement after their house was torn off over their head. He described being able to hear the hissing of the gas leaks and tasting it. Luckily the storm had knocked out all the power before the tornado touched down causing all the leaks.

I've got a lot of probably crappy pictures taken with my cell phone which maybe I'll post here for the interested (I personally find it much more interesting if I know someone involved). It is a little amusing how many people I haven't heard from in a long time who have been trying to get ahold of me. Temporary celebrity is an interesting phenomenon ("Hey, you know that tornado? I know someone who was there! He told me...").

It was very interesting experience. Ham radio (for the very few) and text messages (for the many) were the only reliable methods of communication. Probably people in India with access to television knew more about what was going on than people in Windsor due to the near complete communication breakdown. I'd never seen anything like it except in pictures of far-off (and probably made up) places like "Oklahoma" =)

Disasters like this really draw a community together... at least for some time. We'll see. I'm hugely impressed by the response of not only the local government and services, but those that came in to help from surrounding areas. A mile of downed telephone and power lines were restored in about 20 hours, all homes were checked for trapped people three times before 12 hours had elasped.
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#2
Whoa.

Glad everyone's okay on your end. (Except for poor Trampoline Enclosure, for whom we should all have a moment of silence.) Gas leaks do not sound like the safest things going.

Closest I ever came to a major tornado was miles and miles, and nearly two decades ago, and that's about as close as I'm hoping it will ever get.

-Jester
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#3
Glad to hear you made it through (relatively) unscathed. I live in Tornado Alley down here in Springfield, MO, (google Marionville. It's not far from here) so I get to see some tornadoes more often than I would like. In January (in one night) we had 23 tornadoes in/around Springfield in a 20 mile radius. One of them went a 1/4 mile north of my house at 3 AM. Yuck.
--Mav
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#4
Dunar let us know that you were ok so I didn't panic. At least I think it was Dunar that GG said told him. Glad you guys are relatively ok and it's great to hear that the community is handling it well.
Intolerant monkey.
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#5
Yeah I was informed that you were OK the night of the tornado and was much relieved to hear it. My brother lives in Layfette but he has some friends closer to Windsor as well so there were other connections as well.

I've had a fair bit of experience with Tornadoes. Family friends killed in them while a kid in Wisconsin (the Barneveld tornado of the mid 80's you can google it, my dad's best friend was one of the 9 killed) and just a few months ago one touched down not more than 2 miles from my apartment but it didn't do any major damage since it hit in an undeveloped woodland area. So yeah I was very glad to hear that you were alright and I've gotten some first hand experience with the aftermath you are dealing with now as well.
---
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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#6
Tori & I are relieved to hear it. I thought I had your phone # somewhere, but couldn't track it down, not that it would have done any good anyway.:blush:First thing Tori said when she saw the news was that she wished we lived closer so we could help out.

God Bless,
~Us :wub:
Hardcore Diablo 1/2/3/4 & Retail/Classic WoW adventurer.
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#7
Quote:Tori & I are relieved to hear it. I thought I had your phone # somewhere, but couldn't track it down, not that it would have done any good anyway.:blush:First thing Tori said when she saw the news was that she wished we lived closer so we could help out.

God Bless,
~Us :wub:

We're going to hold you to that. Time to move to colorado!.

D


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#8
Glad to hear you are ok, and the only Tornado in our Area was in 1987 and i was 3, so i don't remember anything. All i know is the huge dead tree at the back of our 40 acres that Blayllis and I used to play on was from that event.

I pray the cleanup goes well and that families that have lost will be able to rebuild:D

-Kira
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