TN/KY Tornado

You know it's going to be an interesting day when Paris, TN and Madisonville, KY make the national news on the same day. Paris being the home of Acappella Ministries and the warehouse. Madisonville being the hometown of Bruce, Rhonda & Will Coleson, and family still live there.

I checked in with the weather channel about third thing on my morning list Wednesday. Tuesday night had been an uneasy one for us here in Alabama as a front of storm weather was expected and showed up in the wee hours of the morning. Fortunately, we did not have the bad weather other areas further north suffered from that front. Regardless, waking to sound of loud thunder and hard rain will get your attention. I grew up running to the basement and for all of my adult life, have not had a basement. Anyway, the weather channel. Well, lo and behold, they had Paris, TN and video of workers at a plant there in town who had weathered the storm as the building was destroyed. I picked up the phone to check on Ryan at the Acappella warehouse. He was fine and we had no damage but then asked me about my home town of Madisonville, he thought they'd been hit. Well, I signed off with Ryan and with one hand was dialing my sister in laws' house, the other was typing in The Messenger website to check the news. Reached both at about the same time. Wow.

Family is all fine but some friends have lost everything and Madisonville has a mess. Looks like the south/east side of town had extensive damage and the twisters jumped the parkway and continued to damage areas further east. No deaths in Hopkins County but one in Marshall County near Benton. The weather service being able to forecast and monitor the storms saved a lot of lives Tuesday afternoon. Sounds like it hit the area about 3:30pm and some came out of their homes with all the other walls and roofs gone except the one they were holed up in. I checked today and some are still without power, the rest are cleaning up the mess. It's gonna take a while. Some lost everything. Reminds us of just how temporary all 'this' is. Share a few hugs today. You never know when you're gonna need the reservoir.