Tornado Aftermath

We were invited over to dinner by some elderly women from the church on Monday night. These ladies used to be our back door neighbors. We found out that they did not have a basement and that they were all looking out their windows. (yikes)They shared some of their photos with us of the tornado that came through/over their apartments. I decided to post them since J & A weren't able to see the previously posted video and they have been to our house before. The first photo is from the weather channel about Spicer's tornado.

This was our old back yard.This was our next door neighbor's backyard. They lost at least 6 large trees in their yard alone. (Notice the one on the right in the foreground that is almost touching the ground now.)Here is a closeup of the tree behind their other fallen tree. This one was ripped straight out of the ground.This was another tree lost by our next door neighbor. They also lost their skateboard ramp but have already rebuilt it. (you can see the frame here that was left)This is the gas station behind our house, next to the grocery store that was also damaged. Another random thing the tornado did was pick up a port-o-potty from the ball field across the highway and deposited it in the parking lot of the grocery store. This is the front yard of the elderly church ladies apartments. They are trying to save the tree on the left. They have it tied to keep from going over all the way.

Due to the recent tornado I decided to look in to how many others have come through anytime recently. On June 11, 2001, our county got 4 tornadoes! (1 in Willmar, 1 in Sunberg, 1 in New London, and 1 in Spicer). On July 11, 2008, this F-3 hit right outside Willmar. Now that is a scary looking tornado! (Can you imagine an F-5?)

This latest tornado was on July 14, 2009.