Tornado Update

Yesterday's reports stated that there were 8 tornado touch-downs in northern CO, rather than 6, as I previously blogged. About 100 people were treated for injuries from scrapes to broken bones to a few people for stress. Only one fatality, amazingly - a man living in his camper just west of Greeley. Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma were also targets of the twisters. There is a short, good article here.

Ro took Josh up to Windsor this morning to help with the clean-up. There is a large presence of National Guardsmen and police officers checking IDs as access to the affected areas is still restricted. Our church set up kind of a "base" at one of our members' homes and they were able to go from there. I'll include some pictures of the area where Ro worked. He just brought Josh home (he got stung by a wasp or something) and is headed back up there for a few more hours this afternoon.

Some have e-mailed me and I've checked online as well, so I thought I'd add a correction to yesterday's post: Evidently if there's a tornado warning, forget the windows. It was apparently one of those things people always said to do but has since been proven to not be helpful, and it's more important to get to safety. There is a lot of information on tornado safety here.

I spend some time browsing different areas of Craigslist quite often, looking for bargains (okay, mostly craft supplies and books but sometimes other things, too, like furniture and lawn mowers). It has completely moved me how in nearly every area people are posting with offers of help - from offering others a spare room, a place to pasture their animals, clothes, etc. I know sucky people are everywhere, but so far I've heard a ton of reports about the way the community has helped out others and none of looting or stealing. Makes me pretty emotional. But maybe I'm just PMSing.

I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend holds. The Windsor church is having an outdoor service tomorrow (combined with another local congregation) and after that I know we (our church) are feeding them. We (our family) will likely go and help out there for awhile. It's hard to do a lot with Grace, but I'm sure we'll be able to do something.

It's interesting... I was a little mopey the other day, missing family Memorial Day barbecues. Looks like it might not've happened anyway, what with everything going on and things needing to be done.

Where the guys helped out this morning: