05-25-2008, 06:05 AM
So some of you know that I live in Windsor, CO (the site of the freak tornado that occurred on Thursday and wiped out a good chunk of the town).
I recently had power and then internet restored to the house so I figured I'd pop in here and leave a little update for the interested.
First off, tornadoes are probably old hat to people in some parts of the U.S. Here in Colorado, we might get little baby tornadoes from time to time, but they are just kind of cute and cool I would imagine (I've never actually seen one). This one wasn't so cute.
So we lost our fence, our trampoline enclosure, one window, and my grill has some holes punched in it from the golf ball and baseball sized hail, but we're doing fine. It's the first (and likely the last) time that I was actually glad I live in a newer neighborhood that doesn't yet have large trees. In the older parts of town that weren't in the direct path, most of the damage was done by uprooted or fractured trees.
Those who lived about a half a mile north of my house didn't fare so well.
I spent all of today helping organize part of and participating in a cleanup effort (which will continue for at least a couple more days). Three families that I am friends with lost their homes completely (among many others I don't know). I'm exhausted (and my lungs still feel full of fiberglass... that insulation is coating everything!). It's hard to sleep with helicopters constantly buzzing the house. A friend (one of the three) is suffering from some torn muscles since he apparently ripped something in an andrenaline-fed rush to dig out the neighbor kids from their basement after their house was torn off over their head. He described being able to hear the hissing of the gas leaks and tasting it. Luckily the storm had knocked out all the power before the tornado touched down causing all the leaks.
I've got a lot of probably crappy pictures taken with my cell phone which maybe I'll post here for the interested (I personally find it much more interesting if I know someone involved). It is a little amusing how many people I haven't heard from in a long time who have been trying to get ahold of me. Temporary celebrity is an interesting phenomenon ("Hey, you know that tornado? I know someone who was there! He told me...").
It was very interesting experience. Ham radio (for the very few) and text messages (for the many) were the only reliable methods of communication. Probably people in India with access to television knew more about what was going on than people in Windsor due to the near complete communication breakdown. I'd never seen anything like it except in pictures of far-off (and probably made up) places like "Oklahoma" =)
Disasters like this really draw a community together... at least for some time. We'll see. I'm hugely impressed by the response of not only the local government and services, but those that came in to help from surrounding areas. A mile of downed telephone and power lines were restored in about 20 hours, all homes were checked for trapped people three times before 12 hours had elasped.
I recently had power and then internet restored to the house so I figured I'd pop in here and leave a little update for the interested.
First off, tornadoes are probably old hat to people in some parts of the U.S. Here in Colorado, we might get little baby tornadoes from time to time, but they are just kind of cute and cool I would imagine (I've never actually seen one). This one wasn't so cute.
So we lost our fence, our trampoline enclosure, one window, and my grill has some holes punched in it from the golf ball and baseball sized hail, but we're doing fine. It's the first (and likely the last) time that I was actually glad I live in a newer neighborhood that doesn't yet have large trees. In the older parts of town that weren't in the direct path, most of the damage was done by uprooted or fractured trees.
Those who lived about a half a mile north of my house didn't fare so well.
I spent all of today helping organize part of and participating in a cleanup effort (which will continue for at least a couple more days). Three families that I am friends with lost their homes completely (among many others I don't know). I'm exhausted (and my lungs still feel full of fiberglass... that insulation is coating everything!). It's hard to sleep with helicopters constantly buzzing the house. A friend (one of the three) is suffering from some torn muscles since he apparently ripped something in an andrenaline-fed rush to dig out the neighbor kids from their basement after their house was torn off over their head. He described being able to hear the hissing of the gas leaks and tasting it. Luckily the storm had knocked out all the power before the tornado touched down causing all the leaks.
I've got a lot of probably crappy pictures taken with my cell phone which maybe I'll post here for the interested (I personally find it much more interesting if I know someone involved). It is a little amusing how many people I haven't heard from in a long time who have been trying to get ahold of me. Temporary celebrity is an interesting phenomenon ("Hey, you know that tornado? I know someone who was there! He told me...").
It was very interesting experience. Ham radio (for the very few) and text messages (for the many) were the only reliable methods of communication. Probably people in India with access to television knew more about what was going on than people in Windsor due to the near complete communication breakdown. I'd never seen anything like it except in pictures of far-off (and probably made up) places like "Oklahoma" =)
Disasters like this really draw a community together... at least for some time. We'll see. I'm hugely impressed by the response of not only the local government and services, but those that came in to help from surrounding areas. A mile of downed telephone and power lines were restored in about 20 hours, all homes were checked for trapped people three times before 12 hours had elasped.
