No really. I came damn close to not being.
Thursday night they started warning us that there we were in store for “The Worst storms in this regions history” Of course knowing how accurate weather forecasting is I posted on Facebook that I give it 50/50 odds of either getting a light drizzle or being carried away by the storms.
Oh how I regret being a smartass at times.
See I live in Henryville Indiana. Maybe you have seen us on the news for the fact that we pretty much aren’t there anymore.
The sirens had been going off for about 45 minutes but there was no sign of tornadoes. I decided to check on a couple neighbors of mine who had recently had children and see if they needed anything since the news had said we had at least a half an hour before it got really bad.
At 3:12 on I took the following photo as I walked out my front door.
As you can see it is cloudy and overcast but doesn’t look like death. So I walk around the road to my neighbors house and she is fine. Doesn’t need anything but is going to go take her baby into the bathroom just in case. Great. So I start waling back around to my house.
The wind really started to pick up and I lost my favorite BCM Hat. 
I turned around thinking i may go back to my friends just in case when I notice something.
So at exactly 3:20 I take the following photo.
Yeah that is what I see. And that would be what I like to refer to as a “Bad thing”
So I duck under the front porch of the nearest house. I don’t know the owner but she is having some work down and the work crew is there watching this thing. While there I took the following video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa-K6CniyQk
Yes that is me cussing and about halfway through saying that maybe we should go inside. It looked like it was cutting across to my friends neighborhood where his wife and kid were. He is a Police officer and was on duty. I am trying to call him on my phone while filming this with my camera. Thankfully it missed his place and they are all fine by the way.
After it passed I started heading back to my place stopping to help where I could. And before I made it back the hail started. And by hail I don’t mean small pieces of ice. I mean Holy shit we are all going to die hail. Softball sized hail that lasted about 3 minutes.
Here is one I found.
That one is about the average size of hail that I found. A lot was bigger.
The hail was so bad that it punched through the shingles on my roof and the plywood underneath. Water poured in and did a lot of damage. My roof and siding looks like I was in a firefight. Holes clean through But in the end I got off pretty lucky. The town proper is gone. The school was leveled the gas station I always go to is destroyed. This beautiful farmhouse that I always wanted to live in is just gone. Nothing is left but a hole in the ground. One house near the school has the remains of a Blue SUV in it. Nobody in the entire neighborhood owned a blue SUV. They don’t know where it came from.
The devastation is pretty much complete. As bad as it looks on TV the reality is so much worse. Luckily I planned ahead. I had plenty of water, supplies, etc. Believe it or not my power was back on that same night by around 11. Of course I am on the same grid as the Fire Department where they set up the Command post. So that had a lot to do with it. I also have water but it is not potable right now so I am relying on my supplies. My house however is in bad shape. I can live in it but have probably 30K in damage total. My parent had not damage and they live about 4 miles away. However they are without power and water. Except for their generator.
That first night I was able to upload my photos to Facebook from my phone. My ex wife actually posted them to CNN ireport giving me credit. They called me and did a phone interview. I mentioned the video and they wanted to see it. The Producer said it was one of the most amazing things they have seen and asked me to do an interview live on camera. I hate being on camera. But I figure anything getting attention to the area and bringing in more help is a good thing. So I did it.
So not only did they use my photo as the front page image on cnn.com but they had me live on there at 7:00 last night.
Not my greatest moment. But at least I was rocking the Noveske hat!! Sorry BCM. I would have pimped you all but I think my hate is somewhere in Ohio now. Grant if you happen to see one blowing along it is probably mine.
Seriously though, all in all I got lucky. The damage is terrible and at least I still have a house. I don’t know why i was so stupid as to stand out in the open with a tornado going by 100 yards away or so. But I did.
After the storm was over I spent the rest of the night helping my neighbors board up windows, etc. And I have to give a shout out to surefire. My collection of 6PXs came in very handy. One got lost in the commotion of trying to work on roofs, etc, but in the grand scheme of thing a single light is a small thing compared to the overall situation.
ETA: By the way, the town is under a state of emergency. Almost martial law. 6PM-6AM curfew, showing ID to get into town, overall a nasty situation. Lots of National Guard patrolling around at night police in from all over the state. I am glad for the help. I just with I hadn’t had a run in with that one jackass that every area has last night.
