I took these pictures of Cahaba Heights the morning of the tornado. My camera ran out of battery, so I did not get too many. Robby and I lost my car, his is still in the shop and a tree fell on the laundry room and the fence... we feel pretty lucky.....
The last post I made in this blog was the day before the tornadoes came through Alabama. Cahaba Heights was one of the first places to get hit around 5:50 am. We just got Internet back last night, so I have a lot of catching up to do.... On April 26th, Clara was spending the night with my mom and dad, because Robby and I had gone to see some friends play at Otey's. When the sirens went off at 5:30 am Robby and I checked the Ipad. There wasn't even a tornado warning that we saw, so we went back to sleep. Next thing I knew, a branch hit the window in our room, my ears were popping and it sounded like a train.... Robby and I jumped out of bed and ran into our hall towards the kitchen, a tree fell on my car outside the kitchen window, so we ran back towards the laundry room and a tree fell there as well. I have never felt so helpless, we were like gerbils running with no purpose..... and just like that it was over. Neighbors started coming outside and calling each other, power lines, trees, and debris were everywhere, everyone was OK. All I could think about was Clara. When I finally got a call through on the cell phone, my parents said everything was fine, but that Clara told them during the tornado that went through Altadena Valley (where my parents live), " If this is what it is going to be like here , Im going home"! We spent most of they day walking around the neighborhood, everything looked so different. People were helping each other out of their homes, a neighbor handed out coffee. You just had a sense of helplessness, there was such an eerie silence. When we heard that another tornado was heading toward Birmingham from Tuscaloosa we went to my parents house. Due to the lack of electricity, Internet, tv... we had no idea how bad the Tornado was. When I went to work the next morning, we watched the news all day. It was devastating. I boxed up everything I had in my back stock that was not perishable and gave it away, just to feel like I was helping in some way. Clara still talks about the "tomato that eats trees and hurts people" but she always ends it with, "mommy, we will fix it, we will make it OK, it will never be the same, but we will like it". It's funny how much you can learn from a child.
