Hello everybody... Checking in. I've been a bit busy the last few days. Last Thursday just before dark we had some terrible storms pass through our area. There was three different tornados. The worst of the lot was a huge EF-4 wedge-shaped tornado that passed very near the Rochelle area. It killed 2 people and injured 22. Many homes completely destroyed and several of them belonged to people I am friends with. I've never seen such destruction - even as a result of war. Prayers requested for the people who lost everything and who were injured as a result of these storms. I was lucky. I only lost one tree because of high winds. Mother nature was not kind to us in this area last Thursday.
Glad you didn't have more damage. I wasn't exactly sure where you are in Illinois but thought about you and those tornados. I didn't know that Rocelle got hit so hard--the same tornado that took out Fairdale?
Last night I was on Facebook in steady contact with my granddaughter who was freaking out that a tornadic storm was making a beeline for her hometown in west Texas--she is in college and was 60 miles away from there but feared for her parents who have no storm cellar. As it turned out the storm went south of there and weakened rapidly so did no serious damage to anything other than nerves.
It was kind of fun 'riding along' with the storm chasers who were live streaming their chases though. But alas, disappointing for them too. At one point there was a definite hook on the radar--obvious to anybody--but it quickly dissipated and no more developed.
The tornado didn't hit Rochelle directly but came across the side of the town in what they call "the Rochelle Burbs". Passed very near the high school. It completely destroyed Skare Park. Never seen anything like it. Also many houses in that area. One of the people who lost their home and everything in it goes to our church and another person I know, the newly elected Sheriff also lost his home and belongings. It came across at somewhat of a 45 degree angle and then destroyed a restaurant and house and lots of farm equipment at the 64/251 intersection. There were quite a few homes lost on the outskirts of Rochelle. Thankfully it didn't hit the more populated downtown part of Rochelle. Fairdale, is a very small place adjacent to Rochelle. It is only something like 6 blocks by maybe 4 or 5 blocks in size and it was more than 95% completely destroyed. My buddy, who is a vet, had to care for many farm animals on the outskirts of Fairdale. A barn collapsed on top of a herd of over 100 sheep. Killed many outright and broke the legs on many others. There were quite a few horses and cattle that had lacerations that needed to be stitched closed. Some cattle had to be put down along with several horses. I haven't driven over to Fairdale to have a look because the authorities want to keep as many people as they can away from that area. Nothing much to see anyway except destruction and you can see plenty of that on the outskirts of Rochelle. As best as we can tell, the large wedge-shaped tornado started off near Ashton where a large food canning plant was destroyed and moved towards Rochelle and then traveled mostly northeast across into Winnebago County skirting Cherry Valley and then into Boone County. There were two other tornados - one on the outskirts of Cherry Valley and another appeared again near Ashton. Some distance away (45 miles) is the town of Clinton, Iowa and they had a tornado there too. No tornado in the immediate vicinity of my house but there were some funnel clouds spotted and the alarms were sounded. At my house we had very high winds, lots of heavy rain and hail about the size of a marble. Was lucky to only loose one tree.
Mrs. BBD's surgery for the knee replacement is not yet scheduled. A side note, on Friday morning she fell onto her right hip and we spent the majority of the day in the local ER. Thought her hip, or maybe her femur, was broken but X-Rays and Cat Scan were both negative for fractures. She has a very large 9 inch by 12 inch ugly bruise on her thigh though that is very painful and ugly to look at.
My daughter stopped by yesterday morning to pick up her brother and they headed off for some fun at Busch Gardens. When they returned home, we had some great eats.
It's official...my kids think WQ is a better cook than me, and they're right.
