On Monday January 7th, 2008 after dropping my mother off at River Bluff, I headed home. It's only about a fifteen minute drive home. It was after 2:00 and I wanted to get home before the predicted heavy rain were to come.
Arriving home, I started baking some brownies. The heavy rain came & I was so glad to be inside. (Later this week, I found out from my brother Dave, who was out by cousin Joyce's farm, could only drive at 20mph because of this heavy downpour.) Sometime before 3:00 the sirens went off here in Rockton. Going to the computer room, I asked Gary what the siren was for. "Tornado Warnings." was his replied. "Shouldn't we be in the basement!!" was my immediately reply. Looking out the window he didn't seem to think so..(a man's response???) Perhaps at that moment we should have looked out the windows in the back of the house. It may have made a different response. At any rate, we turned on the TV in the computer room and a Tornado had been sited near Rock Cut State Park...now folks that not very far from us. The Tornado, was headed towards Poplar Grove. At around 3:19 it did alot of damaged to that area. Some home were leveled and Edward's Apple Orchard got hit very badly.
In the Fall for many of us in Illinois, going to Edward's Apple Orchard has become a family tradition. It's such a beautiful place to pick apples. Many of us have old photos of us with our kid(s) riding in the horse driven wagons to apple groves to pick apples. Afterwards we would all enjoy the hot cider apple and homemade apple pie.
Yesterday, (Thursday) Gary and I took a drive out to Edward's to see the damaged for ourselves. It was seemed so unreal what the Tornado had done to our beloved place. The slide show will tell the story. They lost almost all of the out houses. Their home will have to be replaced. The owner says they will reopen, but may be smaller in the beginning.
Aside from no harm to anyone life..the one miracle is that the Tornado did not destroy their groves of trees.
As Gary and I were leaving they had a sign out front: THANKS FOR ALL YOU PRAYERS. Let all continue to pray for them and others who lost so much as a result of this storm.
4 comments:
Wow, I didn't realize Edwards was hit. That's too bad.
That's funny about a "man's response." I read a Tribune article about one of the tornadoes and a family whose garage was hit. The mom and daughter were in the crawl space, while the dad stood outside and watched. Hello??
I know I am getting off the topic, but where is the snow?????? I didn't know Illinois had tornadoes in January. Hmmmm!!!!!!!!
Michelle,
It's very rare that a Tornado would hit in January. The weather got very warm...and as one knows what happens when cold and hot air meet! The weather had been warmer that usually for January and as a result..all the snow melted.
Juliet, Elizabeth and I had just left TruEssence gym when we heard about the tornado warning on the radio. TruEssence was right in the path of the storm! We headed for the radio station because we knew there's a good basement there, but we could barely see out the window because of the heavy rain. It really was scary!
It's sad about Edwards', but it looks like the community is rallying around to re-build. You're right, it's great that the trees are OK!
Post a Comment