Tornado watch???

[Jessika]

Oh we definitely were almost in one yesterday. We missed it by like five minutes. My friend Mark was driving me, Jamie and Double-Oh down to Branson along with all my belongings (I was moving down there to be with HJ ) and we drove through bad rain, no big deal, but the sun came out and it was GORGEOUS. We were driving up a hill and traffic STOPPED on the highway. We were like, "ummm what is going on?" until we got to the top of the hill and saw this:



Doesn't look too bad.. but it looked like we had just had a snowstorm!! There was five inches of sleet and hail covering EVERYTHING. There were huge steel signs that are usually along the highway completely torn up and twisted, like someone taking scissors to a piece of paper.

There was fog/steam so thick at the bottom of the hill we could only see the car in front of us, and that was it (this does not show up on my camera however as my camera seemed to magically be able to see through the fog LOL)







Then after the fog we saw a bunch of police cars and ambulance responding to this:





I have NO CLUE how that SUV got to where it did. I don't know if it fell off the overpass, was trying to take cover from a tornado and got flipped around, or what! It was facing oncoming traffic so.. I just have no idea how it got to where it was!!

But of course there is always the calm after every storm





We were not even IN Branson when we passed through that mess. HJ calls me and was making sure we were ok and to warn us (though we were already in the middle of it!). Turns out that a separate tornado had formed directly above his theatre he works at and touched down across the street. Luckily where it touched down at there was only one building so nobody was hurt, but the sign to his theatre is completely torn up and fell over.

We made it safe and sound, though, and all throughout the entire storm Double-Oh and Jamie didn't even budge or make a peep! They were out! The whole trip lol

[Jessika]

I forgot to add, my friend in Columbia Missouri (goes to college there) got hail too and they measured hailstones and they were an average of 2 1/2 inches big!!!!!

[Alysser]

WOAH! Jessika, that must have been scary! I'm glad your okay

[K9soul]

Brings back some memories.. I remember one of the worst tornadoes to hit Springfield was on Christmas day, I was still in high school I think.. I wish I could find the pictures we took. My mom and I were volunteers for Red Cross tornado clean-up crew.

We're just getting a blizzard tonight.. no tornadoes here yet

[gini]

I was actually researching how close MOFF was to any of this and I believe she is west of the area where most of the damage took place. I'll feel better when we hear from her though.

[Maya & Inka's mommy]

Wow, scary pics!!

[Craftlady]

Here in Kentucky we maybe under a tornado watch today
Indiana is under tornado watch

[lvpets2002]

I am so heartbroken with thinking of all the familys all the storms have run over.. Last night was more more tornados.. I pray for all the familys & hope all of our Pet Talk Familys are ok.. Let us know if you can..

[Jessika]

Last night Missouri suffered from an estimated 21 tornados that touched down. Springfield suffered hail between the size of a baseball and softball. They got the worst damage and most tornados as they were hit by three separate cells last night.

Down in Branson we got hit by the worst cell of the bunch, but only got one tornado and hail too but not too bad. Our car and our roommate's car suffered damage, so I have to call the insurance company today or tomorrow.

It was a sight to see, though! Jamie, Charlie, Double-Oh, Emi, Emi's chi Peanut, Me, and my friend Mark all crammed into Emi's tiny bathroom!!

I stayed up until 2:30am watching the news though to make sure the worst of the storms were over, and so everyone else could get some sleep.

HJ was at work during it all, and another tornado touched down across the street in nearly the same spot as it did on Saturday.