Well I thought after attending a 19 hour labor and then driving 20+ hours home that perhaps the rest of this week would be a little more uneventful...I was wrong! Yesterday morning I got up at 6:30 am to drive with Jonathan and Madi to pick up my mother (Meme) in Ormond Beach and then pick up my aunt Dotty Kay in Altamonte. We did that, then went to Walmart for supplies for lunch and pie baking, then home to eat. Jake got dropped off from preschool and Mike came home and we all ate "make your own grinders" (grinders is the Connecticut word for subs). Then while the apple pie baking marathon got underway, I went to get a mammogram (to all you ladies reading this...you should get one too!). I came home to 5 apple pies in my freezer. (for those of you that understand the analogy 5 pies= mammogram, just like chocolate cake=birth). By this time it was about 4pm and time to head to downtown Mount Dora for the kids to perform at the Mount Dora Cool street fest. Just as the time approached for the kids to perform huge clouds rolled in and the torrential rains came. Eventually the kids sang some songs acapella while standing under the awning of a building with lightning striking in the background (we have video of this). Due to the weather the rest of the performances were cancelled. Meme, Dotty Kay, Jonathan, Madi, Jake, Mike and I headed to a nearby Mexican restaurant to eat and wait out the rain. At about 8pm Madi came with me to bring Meme and Dotty Kay back to Altamonte while Mike and the boys headed home. The storm had subsided (more like the calm before the storm). On the ride back to Eustis the lightning was becoming more and more frequent. By the time we were almost home it was light driving with a stobe light, it was basically flashflashflashflashflash if you get the picture. My eyes were so bugged out by the time we got home, I had a headache and just wanted to sleep (as Jake would say "not gonna happen"). Meme called me just as I was pulling on to our street to let me know of a tornado warning in Lake County. Once in the house Mike and I (and Madi) put the news on. At that point a tornado was near Lady Lake (about 30 minutes north of us where the terrible devistation took place in February). Eventually we shut off the TV and attempted some sleep. About 15 minutes later the lightning, thunder, rain, wind...was getting worse and we put the TV back on. They were talking about a possible tornado near Mount Dora. We managed to get the kids all downstairs into the pantry-- Madi huddled in the corner praying and Jonathan face down asleep on a pile of pillows (in the pantry). I held Jake (still mostly asleep) and tried to get something on the radio with the broken antenna (because the TV satellite had gone out.) Finally the worst seemed to be passed us and the TV came back on. At this point Madi and I were in the recliner, Jake on the couch, Jonathan still asleep in the pantry and Mike upstairs looking out our bedroom window at the remnants of a funnel cloud (the lightning was still lighting the sky every few seconds). A Lake County Sheriff on his cell phone is talking to the news crew, "there seems to be significant damage at the 1200 block of Monterey near Lakeview in Eustis, " we hear on the news. Well this is less than 2 miles from our house and we own a rental house at 1205 Monterey. Thankfully the tennant was unharmed. A tree fell on her car, windows were blown out, the house across the street is essentially gone. The last I heard on the news at least 50 houses were damaged and 20 completely destroyed. Miraculously there was only one minor injury and no fatalities. God had his hands in Eustis last night.
I've attempted to reread this a few times, but I am dangerously sleep deprived and have no idea if it is making any sense. Suffice it to say if you live far away and are reading this...we are all OK, but it was a long night!
No comments:
Post a Comment