tornadoes in Indy

http://www2.indystar.com/autofocus/galleries/show/2355/1

Here is a link to photos of the 125 mile per hour tornado damage near us yesterday.

Ken and I were at Blake and Leigh Anne's house and headed home around 10:15. It was storming with lots of lightening (I heard a statistic that there were 10,000 touchdowns in 30 minutes) , but we didn't really think anything of it. Shortly after we left, we heard a radio announcement stating that there was a storm with tornadic potential right across the county line. Note, our drive was a mile or two inside that county line. We did the geographic calculation to realize it was traveling the other direction and drove south toward home.

On Sunnyside just south of 75th, we had to turn around because a tree was down across the road. We took a "scenic" route through a neighborhood dodging smaller trees/branches one those roads.

We finally made it back to Sunnyside only to find another tree down across the road north of 62nd. It was between the two drives of a school, so we headed into the school. We found the parking lot of the school flooded. An empty car there was halfway up its doors in the water. We were able to drive around the edge of the lot and get back onto Sunnyside.

However, as Ken was navigating the water, I could see fire engines rushing down 62nd Street. Ken's grandparents' retirement community was off of that street. I told him that we had to stop and make sure they were okay. They had trees uprooted behind their house and large branches down in their yard, but they were okay. They had heard the tornado sirens and were in their closet with pillows over their heads.

We left there and had to cross the train tracks where the stop arms were down and flashing though no train was coming. We are assuming that was a safety feature because all of the power beyond that was out. The Walmart and Kroger shopping area was all out of power. The entire area was dark. I was very weird to see that darkness. Our neighborhood was also without power. There was no damage to our house. The worst of the Indianapolis damage was about 2 miles south of us. Too close for comfort for me!