We are rattled, but safe -The Illinois Hurricane.

For those of you who may not have heard, we had a freak storm hit us on Friday. Six Illinois counties, including the one I live in, have been declared a disaster area by Gov. Quinn. It literally was a hurricane on land. That's even what the weather people are calling it. One weatherman said in the 30 years he's been a meteorologist, he's never seen anything like it.

We were privileged to be among the few who got power back a little earlier than expected. We had power by Monday night. We had borrowed a generator from my parents on Sunday to keep from losing the contents of our fridge. We lost a few things, but thankfully not a huge amount. And let me tell you, there is nothing more precious than a hot shower, clean clothes and a hot meal after something like this. Today is the first day I've had internet service since around noon on Friday May 8th.

First, I wanna say that the people in our area are nothing short of amazing. People have come together to help each other and get through this crisis. I want to thank the River Radio stations for their ongoing marathon of information the last several days. Without their hard work, we would have been uninformed about a lot of important things during this disaster. I also want to thank Ameren and all the amazing volunteers who have worked tirelessly to get the power back up and clean up all the debris. They have sacrificed meals, sleep and their own comfort to help others. God bless them all!

I'll share with you a few youtube clips I found of the storm below. I have my own story to tell in all this, but I'll save that for later. Maybe today. I also have lots of photos to share.

First, what it looked like on the radar:



Some footage (keep in mind that there may be some language in these videos):

From a storm chaser:



From a resident (this one really gives you an idea how it sounded inside your house while this was going on)



Aftermath:



Link to newscast with video.


I'll try to post later with photos from our house, talk about the damage we saw/felt/experienced and what it was like to be inside a house while it moved and creaked around you.