Emerson Avenue Tornado 5/22 Part Two

This was an email I sent on Tuesday 5/24 to a friend, Annie, who lives on the Northside.

The first voice message I received today was your voice mail. Thank you!!! It was really helpful that so many people were concerned about us. We have been so blessed! (and I don't use that word lightly).

This experience has been absolutely eye-opening. It was so isolating to not have: electricity; media access via internet, radio, or television; limited communication due to not being able to make or receive phone calls. I could not get email, check voice messages at work, get on face book, or get any real news. I was limited to text messages. And, that was hard. Most of them failed to go through and I would have to diligently resend them and check until it worked. It wasn't until yesterday late in the afternoon that I could have an actual phone conversation. By that time it was too late to check or change my work voice mail. It was good to get into work to be able to get at my emails and have electricity. I have my cell phone charging right now - which means it's next to me and I'm in a regular chair - not trying to do it in the van through an adapter that runs into the cig lighter.

Thank God there was no damage to our vehicles. It was hard enough to get in and out of the neighborhood as it was. I can't imagine if our cars were damaged as many of them were around us. It took several hours for our block to be cleared (by neighbors on my block) for some vehicle traffic. And shortly after that, a bus got stuck on 36th and Emerson completely blocking that side of our block from vehicle traffic for another several hours. And you know how difficult it still is to get in and out of the Northside! It's crazy. Who would have ever thought that we'd be hit by a tornado - and that it would do such wide spread damage in pockets all across the Northside? It's still unbelievable.

Getting back to work is good - it's good to see normalcy on this side of the world - but it all still seems so surreal. Here are our blessings - we were not injured in the least. Yes we had perhaps significant damage to the house - but it is still completely functioning and livable. My sister took Romie from 5PM on Sunday until yesterday evening, even in the hassle trying to get from NE to North after the storm. It was so much easier to cope with things knowing she was safe, happy, and well cared for. Jo's son brought us some LED lights on Sunday, those and our flashlights, made things manageable after dark. We still had full plumping including drinkable tap water, flushable toilets, and hot showers. We could use the stove (gas) as long as Jo lit it first. On Monday Jo's boss brought us a generator to keep our refrigerator and our chest freezer functioning. Our vehicles have minor scratches. We have financial means to take care of ourselves - for example, to have breakfast at Emily's yesterday before tackling our day. We have good insurance! An old friend is a contractor in Northfield. With one very brief call with very bad reception and he was on his way to us. He arrived Monday around 1:00 and started working on repairs right away. He's professional, competent, experienced, positive, and reassuring. I trust him like a brother and had no concerns what-so-ever giving him a house key. After assessing the damage he said "my job is to take care of things here so you two can get back to work." Since he's based in Northfield - he had no other clients in our area and we are at the top of his que and his priority list.

And, most of all, we have a very loving, caring, supportive, and stable support network that made it clear they were readily available to us with anything we may need.

Compared to many of our neighbors on the Northside - we are so fortunate!!!