Thursday, June 23, 2011

Tornadoes!!!

We had a tiresome night of weather last night! Louisville and the surrounding counties had non-stop tornado warnings- not watches, WARNINGS.

It all started about 7:30-7:45. I was sitting watching my son Trevor play rookie baseball. We're now in the tournaments and the weather had already been plaguing us. My husband had my daughter Hannah across the complex on another field for her game.

We hear the tornado sirens sound, but weren't sure about them (they had accidently gone off the day before). I'm supposed to have text alerts on the weather, checked my phone, but no alert.

Then across the loudspeakers "A tornado has been spotted off of Dixie Highway- All games are suspended. Everyone please go home."

Now, you don't need to tell me twice. Compared to where we were, Dixie Highway was the other side of the county. It was however, moving in our direction.

We gathered everything and the kids and headed home. I hadn't seen such dark and ominous clouds hanging so low in quite some time. Hannah started to panic, asking "Why does our planet have to have bad things happen?" I tried to explain that some things just can't BE explained. Things are the way they are.

So we get home and went down to the lower level of the house (since I don't have a basement). I always shut doors in a small hallway to create an alcove for us to sit in. I turned my laptop on to the local station just in case our power went out.

About that time, we heard that a funnel had been spotted near the Ford plant on Westport Road. That's maybe 1-2 miles away from us.

Off into the alcove we go. My son kept his computer to play a game (anything to keep his mind off the weather) and I sat Hannah on my lap to keep her calm. Greg paced around the door just to keep an eye on things.

Our initial tornado warning was set to expire at 8:30, but kept getting extended because of all the activity. Eventually everything calmed down and expired at 10:45- way past our bedtimes. I could tell it would be a rough morning getting everyone up. Luckily there's no school to deal with.

Our beloved Churchill Downs was hit by an EF-1 tornado, which then picked up more speed and crossed the street to hit Papa John's UofL football stadium (at that point it was an EF-2).

Additional funnels were spotted all over the county, but so far we just know of the touchdown in the Churchill Downs area. Here's some pictures taken from our weather blog:

Middletown Area

Fairgrounds Area

Valley Station

And my personal pictures, taken on the ride home:

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2 comments:

  1. Happy to know that you guys are okay, despite all the chaos around you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you're safe! We were pounded with storms all last night as well. Found my dog sleeping on my purses in my closet this morning!

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