...the tornado storm of May 22, 2011. We were very fortunate to not have any damage and enough warning to take cover...the folks of North Minneapolis were not as fortunate. Our day started out as normal, I started laundry and we made a trip to Target for groceries. We even went to lunch for our nephew's birthday at Applebee's. We had not watched the news that day so we had no clue severe weather was a possibility. We just had spurts of downpours, no big deal, right? While at Applebee's, Mark was checking his phone and said more rain was coming so we better get to our trucks while it was clear. We headed home from there around 1:30pm. Joe had planned to go golfing with a buddy at noon but with the rain, they had to push it out until it cleared. When we got home, he was kinda crabby that he couldn't go golfing yet...so he headed downstairs to play xbox. I got comfy and planned to catch up on some DVR shows. As I was picking up the kitchen, Shiloh needed to go out...I thought I better get her out before the rain hits again. This was probably around 2:15pm. As she was outside, the sirens started...I thought it was kinda strange but figured it was just a thunderstorm warning and they were just being cautious...then the emergency alert system came on and started beeping and said there was a tornado warning for Anoka county...I was like what?!?!? Finally the news came on with a doppler radar, there was a tornado on the ground, near 100/394 and it's path was headed right towards us...I yelled for Joe to come upstairs. We then started to get blankets and pillows collected downstairs...and then we just waited and watched the sky. Joe started to see things that were NOT rain or hail falling and said we all need to go down now. That scared me because Joe never goes downstairs, he always stays upstairs watching while I head down with the dog. It didn't get bad enough that we needed to crawl into our designated tornado spot (under the stairs where our well is located, there are no windows and probably the safest spot in the house)...but we were definitely in the basement and ready to go in if need be.
After it had passed, I watched the news and actually saw the tornado touch down in Forest Lake, live from a traffic cam. Later they had live footage from North Minneapolis...so devastating to watch. I can't even imagine. I guess the Twin Cities hasn't seen this much damage since a storm in 1981. The rest of the afternoon was pretty clear and by dinner time, it was sunny and clear skies. We took Shiloh for a walk after dinner and we found red shingles on our street...no one near us has red shingles...so we knew it was likely that tornado storm had come very close to us...and thankfully it didn't touch down or resurface near us. During the storm, there were possible sightings near Blaine and Ham Lake, which had our family and friends worried...but we haven't seen or heard much about it, so it must not have developed into anything major. I've only seen pictures of debris on the news from our area, so we lucked out again!
I know we are not in the clear yet...they predicted an above average tornado season this year. And with the spring warm up occurring so late, we've only just begun :o/
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