Sandhill Trek: Tornado

We're fine, not even a limb blown off a tree, but neighbors in Stoughton are devastated.

Sixty-five homes destroyed there Thursday evening and another 250 severely damaged. The volunteer brigade is out in full force helping to clean up. We went down to the high school with some flats of fresh water bottles and several gallons of Gator-Ade. They're processing the volunteers through by the dozens. You sign in, you get a tetanus shot, you pick up some work gloves and you get on a school bus to go out to the site.

Beth overheard one of the Salvation Army people asking, "Do we have enough sandwiches?" and the response was that "Cathy C. was making them. She has a count." Cathy C. is our next door neighbor. The disaster site is one small town over from where we live. Small world.

Dozens of tornados pounded through here Thursday night. Several people were injured and there was one fatality, a man who went to the basement and wa killed by the chimney that collapsed inward on him.

A friend from over by Lake Michigan called to find out if we were okay. He saw it on the 10pm news. We had hear the sirens and followed the live weather reports and sort of let go of our concern when the all clear sounded. Friday morning we began to understand the extent of the damages.

People pull together when something like this happens. People take care of each other. And it's awful that so many people had nice comfortable lives one day and all their stuff, their beds, their kitchens... the goofy crafts and refrigerator art the kids brought home from school, the wedding pictures, the junk mail on the dryer, the unwrapped birthday presents in the bottom dresser drawer, the canoe, the bicycles, everything... vanished. But neighbors and family find them a place to sleep and life goes on.

A few hours after the tornado struck here they were picking up people's bank statements and laundry lists on the shores of Lake Michigan, eighty miles to the east. No fooling.