“A Rainy Night in Georgia” …and LOTS and LOTS of tornados! April 26/27, 2011

All looks well.  If you are looking through the lens of a camera.

You can see ONLY what the eye of the camera sees….but in an instant the beauty of this rose is grossly overshadowed by the

destruction…lives and landscapes changed.  Forever burned like a CD…

into your memory. 

But those were the “lucky ones”.  The ones

that are thankful to God for sparing their lives.  But for

one couple…who awoke

in the arms of Jesus.

They were found in a pasture, far FAR from their house, still clutching one an other.

Today, just three days since a wild and fearsome clusters of tornados ripped through our state, we set off to help some friends in the monstrous task of  cleaning up. Even if the roots ran deep… the tornado ripped trees off at the ground. (note the baby pool is actually for their sweet dogs.)  Which made it fine!  Here’s cute Daisy.  Happy to have “live entertainment” (that wasn’t too scary) She’s getting old, perhaps a bit hard of hearing and didn’t seem to mind all the chain saws! This porch was chopped off.  A gazebo blown into the woods, glass smashed, huge AC is now knocked off it’s foundation.  But look!  Not a blossom touched on “B”s pink hydrangea ?! Here’s a cute picture of our friends “A” and “B” with their beloved Daisy.  Oh…soooooooo much work to be done!  And soooo much has been already done.  Right after the storm, there were so many trees knocked down on their driveway, their street, their vehicles they were trapped in their own yard!  The last two days have been spent just getting a pathway to the road.  Their dirt road?  Well that’s another story but at least the County sent trucks and lots and lots of BIG chain saws!  They’re still out their working. In the path of so much destruction and chaos, beauty and peace could be found.  Like these sweet gum trees (is that their name?) look at these beautiful, delicate blossoms that continue to bloom.  The tree no longer is planted in the ground, yet the tree branches still have enough life in them to allow their beautiful flowers to bloom!  Amazing! So many trees were twisted and snapped, broken branches falling to break so much on ground.  Here, you can see the trees in the back ground.  How was it??? that not a stem of these vegetable  plants were NOT even touched? I got my sequence off when loading these next two pictures.  This is the AFTER photo.  AFTER spending several hours and buckets of sweat.  You can now see that there was a little barn and open shed for their boats, etc. This was the BEFORE photo.  you can’t tell that there was a little barn and shed there, except the fire wood is still stacked there. After a tasty break for lunch of pepperoni pizza, ice water, Gatorade and of course a cold “brewski” We finished packing our tools up and headed out the long way to view the rest of the county. (this is about 20 mins. south of where we live) . The up rooted trees are found in almost everyone’s yard/pasture.  A tool shed/barn received the “can opener” treatment of it’s roof!  The John Deer tractors seem to be o.k.  A roadside marker blown into the bushes.  Along with the rest of the house!!! This house belongs to an old time friend of my husband’s from his “farming days”. It “was” absolutely beautiful!  It had “everything”. Silo Slice.  Those trees don’t LOOK that heavy when their standing up tall! A child’s “little Tyke” wagon, still ready to roll…kind of. This house was blown completely off it’s foundation.  This was one of the few houses that already had a dumpster ready for pick up!  What a pretty home.  Two mins. can sure make a HUGE difference.

One last photo.  And if you hung in with me and read this all the way through…you’re a trooper!  This was a two story home.  The stairs (left) are ALL that remains.  The rest…came to rest…in a gazillion pieces down the hill and plastered into the twisted and torn up trees.  this house

was just three houses down from our friend’s home.  Where we spent the day, trying to make a dent in the huge amount of work ahead of them.  They don’t have any stairs in their home (it’s a ranch) but they’re VERY thankful to have each other AND their house to call their HOME!  (of note, the father and son that were in this house(photo above) at the time are fine,a bit cut up…but fine) A huge Easter Blessing to us all!  He has risen…and so shall we.