mikahb

I live in Gallatin, TN and we had 2 tornados touch down on Tuesday night. My house is situated in a fairly hilly spot adjacent to a highway. On the other side of the highway there are lots of farms and it's quite flat.

We were asleep in bed down in the basement and the kids were asleep in their rooms upstairs. Around 1am, we heard quite a racket outside - sounded like the storm had gotten REALLY ugly, and our 2-year-old woke up. The power was out, but that's not an unusual occurrence here, and after about 10 minutes we were able to get her back to sleep. I stepped outside to see how things were going, and everything was relatively calm and quiet - and I told myself the worst had likely passed. Well, a small (F2 - they estimate) tornado touched down about 2 miles southwest of our house. I had no idea until the sun started to come up on Wednesday how bad it had been, and how lucky we were.

We lost 8 cedar trees - all of them over 50' tall and all more than 70 years old. The one that's broken at the trunk (about 7 feet up) did land on the house, but the damage was very minor. One of the pictures is of our neighbors house - their house is intact, but their barn and shop are gone. Further over the hill to the west, 4 homes were completely destroyed, I have heard conflicting reports about whether there were injuries or not, but the houses are flattened. And of course, as you've seen on the news, many people lost their lives.

So the new T1 car was in the driveway in the trailer, and didn't get a scratch on it. All in all, we were extremely lucky, and the outpouring of support has been amazing to help us (and neighbors) clean up and move forward. So, next time you're having a bad day, think about how much worse it could get and how quickly.

Life is short - play hard!

SteveC6R

Glad your alright Mikah, I forgot you lived out there. A lot of people lost their lives here this week.

PA Z06

Glad you and family are ok

SouthernSon

That was certainly close enough, Mikah. I am off this monday and tuesday. Let me know if you will be out there cleaning up...."Have chain saw, will travel"......

ERND IT

WOW! So glad to hear you escaped relatively well, tho it's unfortunate you lost some beautiful old trees around you. At leas you and your family are safe - and the car is, too

My folks are in Bowling Green about 50 miles to your north - they lost alot of their roof on the house and huge old trees also went down, but no damage to the body shop, family cars or people, thankfully.

Just a reminder that Mother Nature definitely demands our respect!

PS - read your post on your adventures at Roebling recently - great write-up... I'll miss seeing you at SCCA autox events in TN!!

TedDBere

Wow, scary.

Glad you and family are alright. My thoughts are with you and your neighbors! Good luck with the clean up and recovery.

MungoZ06

Glad to hear you're OK.
Some lost their lives because they didn't hear the warning in time. If one waits to hear the tornado it's too late.
Tornados defy logic and with the number of sightings already this year ... there are sure to be catastropic losses ahead anyone in a tornado threat area needs to proactively identify a shelter area and preemptively use it when a tornado warning is issued for their area.
Sadly, that will not always happen.
All the best to you and your neighbors.

xsiveone

Glad to hear that everyone is all right.

Didn't you guys get hit hard by a tornado outbreak a couple years ago? Gallatin, TN sounds familiar.

robvuk

Good to hear no one was hurt. It looks like it was close. I live on the other side of town in Franklin and we just missed the bullet. Although over the years, I lost a lot of big old trees like that. They're impossible to replace.
I'll be in your neighborhood this weekend. I keep a boat at Anchor High. I'm sure I'll see a lot of the carnage.