Too Close For Me!

Last night we had a tornado go right by our house! Jeff & I knew there was potential for tornadoes, but let's face it, the weathermen seem to exaggerate the danger sometimes. We watched the storm as it got closer to Wichita. We had already sent the kids to bed.....on the second floor of our house.... Not too long after that, we realized we should really get down to the basement, so we got the kids back up and told them they were going to watch a movie downstairs, just to be safe. Lily & Riley bought it....Zach was harder to convince that everything was fine. When it seemed like it as going to head straight for our house, Jeff & I went downstairs too & turned on the radio. We all huddled in a corner and put a blanket over us. Then the power went out and we heard a loud, rumbling sound. It didn't last long at all. Jeff & I looked at each other like, "Was that it??" We called my sister to see if that was it, if it was past. It was. We didn't really think it had hit our house, but it hadn't been too far from us. Jeff & I went upstairs to see that our street was fine. Insert sigh of relief here. We went outside where, in true Kansas fashion, other neighbors had gone out too. A lot of people had roof damage (just missing shingles, nothing too serious). We didn't have any roof damage thanks to the new roof we just put on in October, but we did have a few pieces of siding loose near the top of the house. Our power was still out, but we went back in, and tried to get the kids settled down enough to sleep. We just let them sleep in the basement because we had heard there might be more severe weather coming. As I was trying to calm the kids down (they were talking a mile a minute and asking tons of questions), I told them to say a quiet prayer of thanks to God for keeping us safe. Before the storm was bad, I had asked them to say a quiet prayer asking God to keep us safe. When I asked them to pray again, Riley said, "When I prayed the first time, I asked God to move the tornado just a little bit, to keep us safe." I didn't realize how astounding those words would be until we heard where some of the damage was. About 1,000 feet from our house, a tornado shredded several trees in the park by our house, downed fences, and snapped power lines in half. While there is minimal damage to the houses that surround the park (Thank God!), we really felt lucky that it didn't hit us at all. So Riley's prayer was answered, it was moved over, just a little bit.
Here are some pictures from damage around our house:

I'm pretty sure this is why we still don't have power....

There are several snapped power lines. We have a generator running a few things now, but hopefully the electricity will be back on soon.

We were very lucky. There were other parts of Wichita hit way harder than our neighborhood was. And there have been towns with much more devastating loss than we saw here last night.

It was just a little too close for my comfort zone. I have lived in Kansas my entire life, and I have never been as afraid of a storm as I was last night. I am so thankful that all of our families are ok.