Tornado hit my city (pics added)

[Pembroke_Corgi]

I just posted about our new dog Vallis, but I decided to post this on another thread. I don't know if this made national news or not, but a tornado hit Iowa City, and there is major damage 1/2 mile from my house!

It was so scary- last night the sirens went off with reports of a tornado west of town, and I was at my mom's house with the dogs. We all went into her basement under the stairwell (me, my mom, brother, all 3 dogs and my mom's cat). Luckily, her house was not hit and neither was my house (Eric was home with Seine, they were in our basement) but the downtown is badly damaged. The pet store which houses the rescue where I got Vallis from is downtown, and they must have about 35 cats that live in the store. I was so worried the glass would break, but luckily all the animals are unharmed, and the store made it ok without much damage. Also very lucky is that the U of Iowa hospitals was not hit, as 10,000+ people are in there everyday. The University of Iowa cancelled classes today which to my knowledge has not happened in over 30 years (when I was a student I always checked during severe weather but they make a point not to close down campus).

Well, I know this was not dog-related but I just wanted to share since it was such a scary event, and even though I've lived in Iowa most of my life, nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

Edit: I walked downtown with my brother and luckily most of it was spared. I got some pictures of the worst damage though, thankfully no one in town was badly hurt! It's amazing how one end of the street can be fine, then see so much damage down the road.