Dodgin the Bullet

So I don’ t have a lotta time… The Receptionist and Office Whisperer are both out sick today… the Office Manager has been in a meeting for a good portion of the morning, and it seems all the PM’s saved up their stuff just for me since I was out on Friday. So I have a handy pile of work to get done.

Weekend Excitement

BUT… I HAVE to mention the storms this weekend. We had at least a dozen or so tornadic storm cells traipse through Missouri yesterday (and Kansas and Illinois and some others, I understand, but I think MO took the brunt of the bulk of them)… I heard this morning that there were over a 100 tornados in total, but according to news reports this morning, I can only confirm 32… 20 of which came through Missouri. 12:15 Update: I'm reading more reports saying 110 tornados across the midwest for Sunday alone, with 17 more on Saturday. Doh!

They came in 3 rounds… once in the morning, afternoon and late evening/night. Through the afternoon and evening bouts, I stayed glued to the radar on one of the local stations that covered the weather nonstop while there were tornado warnings in the area (7 or 8 hours total, I think). There were typically a dozen or more counties under severe thunderstorm or tornado warning at any given time… and Columbia’s tornado sirens went off no less than 3 times.

The Toll

Lots of damage, injuries and 9 deaths throughout Missouri… but, my little corner of Columbia remained unscathed. There was a brief scare while one of the afternoon cells passed through the north end of town, but… while I only experienced a little bit of wind, areas of the city as little as 5 miles north of me had windows broken and stoplights blown away, as well as damage from golf-ball sized hail (softball sized reported in other places).

The Office Manager happened to be right in the path, though, visiting a friend in town. Her car was completely thrashed by hail. The only thing we’ve heard from the Receptionist is that she’s out sick today, but we read that 4 were killed in tornados in Moberly, where she lives. And no less than 2 cells went straight through New Boomfield, where IHOP Family lives… I’m gonna have to call them up and make sure they’re okay. There were so many tornado sightings, I couldn’t keep track of where they were.

My Experience

It was just before that cell came to town that I retreated with Ms. Pukesalot to my utility room, which is my most interior windowless room. Like I said, we to the south ended up hardly feeling anything… but the warnings were flying, so you can’t be too careful. I heard one report immediately after of a tornado sighted just outside of town, but I never heard anything about it again.

As for the evening… like I said, I stayed glued to the weather radar all night. And I watched as cell after cell traipse through the area… they were moving north/north-east, and each time they passed either JUST north or JUST south of Columbia. The final cell was a long vertical one that held mostly just thunderstorms, and that’s the only one I actually felt. By time it got to us, the last tornado warning had expired and the local station I’d been watching finally switched off the non-stop weather. The storm was rather anti-climactic, but I’m certainly not complaining. By time I turned off the tv and crashed, it was roughly around 12:30 / 1:00 am… and I am whupped this morning. *sigh*

More?

Oh well… the price of excitement, I suppose. This morning is pretty choppy, too, and I’ve been reading about more storms headin through Kansas. I guess we’ll see how it goes. I wonder if we’ll still have our statewide tornado drill tomorrow.