Day I'll Always Remember

Thursday was the day from hell in northern Colorado. Pam called me from work around 10 am and told me to get downstairs into the basement office where we pay our rent as Fort Collins had a tornado on the way. When I refused, she told me to keep my eye on the weather and if it looked freaky, to at least get into my bathroom because it has no windows. Both Pam's workplace in Loveland, and Rob's workplace here in Fort Collins were evacuated into central areas or basements. All the schools were in lock-down mode. This part of the state actually had 8 tornado touchdowns between 10 am and 8 pm. Fort Collins escaped with nothing except high winds, a brief period of heavy rain, and a brief period of LARGE hailstones. Pam came home from Loveland early to get her car inside the car in case we had more hail here in Fort Collins. It's hard to fathom hailstones the size of baseballs (which Windsor had) and you can't imagine the damage that size piece of ice can do to your car or home. Many people were rushed to the ER because of being hit by hail. We continued to have a tornado watch all day and even again yesterday. The last time Fort Collins had a tornado of this magnitude was in 1967! They often have tornado spins in the summer which is a very mild twister which can still do damage, but far from what we experienced Thursday. I told my son I was ready to go home to Maine and shovel snow!!!

The worst hit area is a town about 8 miles from here where several of Pam/Rob's co-workers and friends live. I'm sure by now most of you have seen the pictures of devastation in that area. Even today, hundreds are without power and many homes and businesses are flattened. The Cornerstone Baptist church is ,literally, all over town! Pews have been found in one place while the spire was found several streets away. Who knows where the hymn books ended up! One farmer is Greeley found 20 of his 160 herd of milking cows blown hundreds of feet from the pasture they were grazing in. Of course, the impact of the wind and force of landing killed them instantly. I think the most heroic story of this whole storm was a daycare center in Windsor. The building was damaged, the playground equipment is gone, and several of the teacher's cars were damaged by flying debris and hail....however, the 130 kids inside were saved by the teachers literally covering the children's bodies with theirs. It was gut-wrenching to think what could have happened if those teachers hadn't reacted as quickly as they did.

Windsor is now in a clean-up mode and hopefully, all the gas leaks have been repaired so many of those people can go back into the area to see what, if anything, they can retrieve from the ruins of their homes. We complain about the high cost of gasoline and food....but,until you have gone through something like this, you can't appreciate what you have!