Tornado!

We had a close brush with Mother Nature on April 16, 2011.
John was watching out the back and I was watching out the front while we had the tv on showing the radar.
I could see that the storm's hook was going to go right over our area and was listening for that telltale wind hum,
but the thunder was constant so it was hard to hear.
I never saw a funnel, but did see the trees start moving in that way that anyone who has been through a storm will recognize, and my ears started popping and ringing, and the hair on my arms stood up, so that's when John and I went back to the bathroom with the kids and brought the dogs with us.
The house creaked and shuddered a bit, but we had the lights off so the light from our flashlight candle was steady.
The kids didn't really know how bad it was. We downplayed it big time.
It was over really quickly. I don't why people say they sound like freight trains. They sound nothing like freight trains to me. They sound like tornadoes.
That night we stayed at Jenn's house.

The next morning, we went back home to try to figure out what to do. 
The boys are on spring break, so we decided to pack them up and send them to Fannie camp. We drove and met Fran and Tommy in Concord and traded the boys for a chainsaw. Doing that took up most of the day.
We slept at home that night.

The 2nd day after the storm, (yesterday) the water damage and restoration people came out. At one point we had 2 large trucks and 3 smaller trucks crowding our driveway and cul de sac. They had guys on the roof putting up tarp and temporary shingles, a guy in the attic pulling out wet insulation, and a couple of guys figuring out how to anchor the chimney back to the house so a stiff wind wouldn't blow it down completely.
They put industrial fans all over the house to dry things out. They will be there for the next 3 or 4 days. There's a lock box on the door so the water guys can come check on it and make sure things are going as they should. There are also two very large dehumidifiers running. They have hoses to drain into our sinks. The floor in the vanity area of our master bathroom rated as very wet, and since it was parquet flooring the guy said it would swell and buckle, so they took it out so they could get the subfloor dry.
The bathroom is the wettest area, so they also brought in something that would heat the room to 120something degrees to bake it dry. I had to do a quick dump and dash to get all of our bathroom things that would be ruined by heat out of there. There is plastic up in the bathroom doorway to keep the heat and fan in there.
Once the fans are all on, it is very, very loud in there, so we took Jenn up on her offer to crash at her place. The dogs are going to go stay at Julianne's house and play with her kids and dog. I don't know what we'd do without friends! Well... I do know what we'd do. We'd have to put the dogs in a kennel and ourselves in a hotel. This is going to be a lot nicer than that. Life is better with good friends.

I have no idea what today will bring.

I'm taking pictures as I think of it. They'll all be included in the same set on flickr. You can find it here.