Hurricanes, Typhoons and Wildfires and Tornados, Oh My!

It's seems like everywhere we've lived we've had excitement of the natural disaster variety. Hurricanes in Pensacola, Super typhoons in Guam, Wildfires in San Diego and now we've had our first Tennessee Tornadoes. Ten days ago on Friday the boys I were finishing up our last day at cub scout camp. That day a TV weatherman came and talked about tornadoes and hurricanes--how timely! When we got home the weather radio alarm started going off with Sever Thunderstorm Warnings and finally a Tornado Warning. By the time Clint got home from work, 10 minutes later, things were ramping up. The sky was turning purple and later it was orange and it was really raining and blowing around out there. Then the power went out. The boys started crying and getting scared so we told them ,"Don't worry this is just a practice." We put them in Clint's closet with floor pillows and the laptop to watch a movie. About 15 minutes later it was all over. We got off with no damage, but many in the area had trees go down and there were two tornadoes that touched down in our town. We didn't have power for 20 hours (100,000 homes were without power) and lost $200 worth of food in our fridge. That night we called Joey and Katie and invited ourselves over to their house for games as they still had power and AC. It was very easy to go as we already had the boys dressed in their PJs watching movies in the van and I already had Trace's crib in the trunk from cub scout camp. The next day we started getting antsy enough in the heat that Clint went to Lowes to look for a generator, not really expecting there to be any left, and there weren't. But luckily the power came back on 2 minutes before he got back.
Sunday morning was even more exciting for me as Clint went to church early for meetings and we had another crazy storm blow through. This time our weather radio wouldn't pick up a signal and the TV stations wouldn't tune in so I couldn't figure out how serious it was. I texted Clint and asked if church was canceled and he returned "Of course not! No big deal, just a thunderstorm." I still left 10 minutes earlier than usual expecting to have to drive more slowly in the driving rain. I had to drive through about 5 washed out places on the road and around two felled trees on the route to church and the whole time I was going about 20 miles under the speed limit watching for hazards, very nerve wracking. These country roads look like inspirational posters--tunnels of trees. Very pretty, but dangerous with zero shoulders, little visibility and drivers that are not good at driving in weather. I was almost to the church when a police car pulled in front of me and blocked the road because it was washed out ahead. So I had to circle back and come another way which added another 20 minutes to my trip. Most people arrived about the same time I did, 1/2 hour late! It was slim showings and a very exciting morning for sure! (sorry no pictures. Our camera was lost during this time.)