In the middle of the night . . .

I'm ready to get a good night's sleep! Those of you who live around here know what I'm talking about. But, this was our experience. Tuesday night the boys climbed in our bed, because of the terrible thunder that shook the house all night - not very restful. Last night our weather alarm was going off all night long with various warnings and watches all over the area. After a while, you tend to ignore it even though every time it goes off it wakes the neighbors. Well, around 3:30am, Dave hears it again and decides to turn on the tv. The massive amounts of red lines heading toward us should shake us a little, but we didn't rush to our interior room just yet, because this is nothing new to our wonderful weather patterns here. The storm was by the airport and was clocking 80 mph wind gusts, and it was producing over 300,000 bolts of lightening per hour, and it was still climbing. About 4am or just before Dave hears sirens. Our city's tornado sirens are going off, and the tv is showing rotation right near our area. We grab some blankets and pillows and head to the laundry room (our safe room). Dave grabs Dekan and hands him to me, and goes to get Chandler. Dekan wakes up a little and says, "What are we doing in here, mom?" So, I explained the situation and he got a little nervous, well, a lot nervous. Chandler was awake at this time, but couldn't have cared less - he probably thought it was fun to have a little laundry room party in the middle of the night. Just as Dave was going to grab our tv and put it in the laundry room, our power goes out, which for me is the worst, because you just want to know what is going on out there. I've got both boys and we just listen to the pounding against the house, and the howling wind. They say a tornado sounds like a freight train, and it seemed to me that there was a freight train in the distance, but nothing hit us. I didn't ever look outside, but every time the lightening (which was constant) hit, it lit up the whole house. This was probably the most serious threat we've had since we've been here. I drove around today to survey the damage and it was incredible. I wish I could have taken better pictures, but most of the stuff I saw was while I was traveling on a busy road, and I couldn't stop to take a picture. One picture is of a brick chimney blown into someone's roof, and the roof was starting to bow. I ran into a gal at the gym this morning who told me about a house nearby who had fence pickets through their house and roof. All these pictures were taken in our city. I know of a few tornadoes that touched down due to this storm, but I think most damage was caused by the straight line winds. Anyway, hope you all sleep well tonight!!