This is the reason I have to type everything in word and save it on my computer until we get Internet service again! I’m going to start from the morning of the storm. (Shon had been sleeping upstairs in his “man cave” upstairs because he wants to watch TV when he goes to sleep. I wont let him watch it in the bedroom because it sometimes wakes Mack up so this is why he wasn’t in there with us.)
Mack had just woken up about 6:20, this is normal, he usually wakes up around then and I get him and let him lay with me for about 30 more minutes then he is ready to eat. Well right when I picked him up out of his pack-n-play and turned around to get back in the bed Shon came in and said yall get in the bathroom. Shon is not normally scared of storms so I didn’t as any questions I just took Mack to the bathroom in the hallway and sat down in the floor. Shon was walking back and forth in front of the bathroom door going from the front door to the back door. The lights were still on at this point. Mack was screaming. He was very confused! He is used to getting into bed with mommy in the morning but this morning he didn’t know where he was! After a few minutes in the bathroom the TV went out and then the power. Shon was at the front door looking out when I heard him slam the door and run to the bathroom. We had the comforter off the bed in the bathroom with us, so he grabbed it and put it over our heads while the worst of the storm came through. It was very scary! Shon later told me that while he was at the front door he could hear the trees snapping, that is why he ran to the bathroom. He also said that he could hear it coming through. I could not hear much because Mack was crying and we were under the comforter but I could feel the house shaking!
I put Mack in his swing, since it was battery powered, and he actually went to sleep and slept for 2 hours! Since Mack was asleep and ok we walked outside to look at the neighborhood. Our neighbors were already outside looking around. The tornado had come right down the ninth fairway on the golf course, which is right behind our house! We walked around and looked at the damage, we were very lucky that the tornado went down the fairway instead of where our house was. There were tons of trees down and a lot of people had roof damage. There were only a couple houses that had major damage to them.
We sat in our neighbors (Jeff and Terri) garage the rest of that day watching and waiting for more storms. Mack was absolutely wonderful the whole day! He slept on the couch that they have in the garage in his dino pjs for most of the time. I don’t know if it was the storms or our 2 trips to the chiropractor that made him so calm that day but whatever it was I am thankful for it. We used the big green egg to cook all of our food for the day. We were just cooking what we had in the freezers because we knew we weren’t going to get power for a while and it was all going to go bad. We cooked eggs and sausage on the grill for breakfast and we later cooked a pizza on it too! Thank goodness we had the big green egg grill! We didn’t have any more major storms in our area that day but the rest of Alabama did! A large tornado tore through Tuscaloosa, our college town L, and through some parts of Birmingham. There was also one that went through Cullman and later went through an area close to Arab called Ruth. We actually heard the one that went through Ruth from our driveway! It was a devastating day for the whole state! There were many lives lost and thousands of homes and properties damaged or completely lost! I can’t believe Mack has already been though a major tornado! I have never been through anything like this in my 25 years and he is only 9 weeks old and has already been through it. Of course he wont remember it but maybe through this blog he can one day read about his experience with the April 27th tornados!
We stayed at home the first night after the storms but then we knew we had to leave. We couldn’t stay there with any power with an almost 9-week-old baby. So we loaded up the car and went to Granna’s house. They had a generator so we stayed with them for about a week! Mack had his 9-week birthday while we were there and things were so crazy I didn’t even take a picture! We were pretty board but Granna was out of school because of the storms so she was able to stay at home with us. Shon went to work with Pop at the store because the banks were closed because they didn’t have power and Pop was selling generators and chain saws like crazy! He needed all the help he could get! Shon drove to Mississippi twice to pick up generators and he and dad and all the workers at Bonds Appliance worked so hard to help our community! I was so proud of them! After the week that we had stayed at Granna's we were so ready to be home so we came home and thought we could make it with no power. It was just too tough with a baby so we stayed with our neighbors, since they had a generator, for the next 2 nights. We still didn’t have power after 9 days so we went to Nanas house to stay for the weekend. We stayed there Friday night and on that Saturday our neighbor, Jeff, called and said we had power. It had been 11 days since we had power! We were so ready to be home! I am writing this on Thursday May 12th and we still do not have cable or Internet but we are so thankful that we have a house to run cable and Internet to! We were all so glad to be home, it was definitely a memorable experience!
