COUNTING OUR BLESSINGS AFTER THE STORM

On Tuesday night, a horrible storm literally blew through the area. Kevin and I looked out the window at our neighbor's 75+ year old trees blowing almost sideways. Tornado or straight lined winds... who really knows. All they know is it was 80 or so mph winds according to news reports. Kevin and I sat in the hallway (the safest place here since we don't have a basement) along with 5 of our fur-babies (Bella, Lula, Speckles, Munchkin, and foster baby Shiloh) and listened to the weather radio. We didn't even have to tell our 4 legged kids, they just followed us in the hallway (even shy Shiloh)!

The picture above and below were taken on our street

A street perpendicular to ours, 1 block down

There were several of these in a row in West Memphis, AR
The flooding was unbelievable- roads completely impassable just one street over (we are so thankful that our house is literally on the highest part of this city). We awakened on Thursday morning to a 3 x 2 piece of drywall on the floor of our dining room. The night before I noticed a leak in the ceiling and looked in the attic...sure enough a continuous drip down one of the beams, despite the fact that our roof is less than 3 years old. I put a pan under the drip but it was apparently too late.

After the cleanup

This is 1 street south of ours- completely flooded (many people had to evacuate)

There goes the power... No biggie, it will come right back on right??? Well little did we know that our electrical lines were lying in our yard along with several other power lines in the neighborhood. We now know the meaning of "torrential rains". Just when we thought we would have a break, another round came in from the southwest (for days).

Hard to tell but this is 1 block to the north of us- part of a big tree down on their power line (you can enlarge it to see)

If you look closely you can see the power lines down (our yard)

Our neighbor 1 block to the east of us- luckily their roof was only minimally damaged

Another neighbor a block down the street

Backyard of my neighbor directly across the street (they lost another huge tree last year during a storm)

Another lost tree down the street

A familiar sight sadly

This is some farm land out on the way to Kevin's brother and sis-in-law's house...more flooding

This is a Church in Marion (the next town over)

More from Marion

Near Kevin's brother's shop- this poor family's entire front yard is under water

I looked out the window in my computer room at my Tulip tree hoping it was ok...thankfully it was for the most part. However, I can now see completely through to the sky (not possible before of course). 4 fairly large size branches completely snapped. This is my absolutely favorite tree in the world so I'm so grateful that the storms did not do any more damage than that. Driving around the neighborhood, I was astounded at the numbers of enormous trees completely uprooted. Sad in itself really. It turns out we FINALLY got our power on Thursday at 4 pm, 45 hours later.

Pretty crazy what wind can do

Another broken branch in my favorite tree

It may not be nice and round anymore, but I am so grateful that it is still standing :)

YAY...we have tv and can finally find out what has been going on for the past 2 days. Well how devastating that was to hear about all the death and destruction that occured in Alabama, Mississippi, etc. We were extremely lucky and definitely counting our blessings. Prayers go out to all of the families affected by these horrible storms.