June 26th started like any other day, sun was shining and it was as hot as it can be. Chad was working on building us a storage shelf for our room in the RV. There is never enough storage in an RV and we were lacking a good way to store our clothes. I made dinner and then took the kids to the movie theater. When we got home, we brought the shelf in and set it up in the house because it looked like there was a rainstorm in the distance. The wind started picking up which is quite nerve wracking in an RV. But it was nothing that we had not been through before. It started raining and the power went out.
I got a call from Payton that the power was out at the movies and they were ready to be picked up. Chad and I hopped in my car and headed to get them. On the weather app there was a notification that there was a tornado that touched ground west of town. Now I am freaking out… mind you I have no idea which direction is west and all I can think about is something happening to the kids. Payton called crying and freaking out because of the storm. Mama bear kicked in and I was going to get to them over hell or high water.
Well, I didn’t really mean I wanted to go through high water but apparently flash floods is a real thing here. As I was driving along the water got really deep really fast. I had Chad call Payton and it went to voicemail. He tried it again and she answered but she was crying. She was so scared, she said it was very loud in there from the storm and she was so scared. I was praying that it wasn’t from the tornado being close to the, I had nowhere to pull over to get out of the flooded water, and the water was flowing like a mini river on the streets. I tried driving through the middle of the road where the water wasn’t as deep but it wasn’t helping. My car is pretty low to the ground and it almost died a few times. I was praying to just get to my kids and know they are okay. I looked to my left and I saw a car being pushed by the water backwards toward my car. I began praying, please God no, please let me get to my kids, the car wouldn’t move, Chad told me to push on the gas, I had my foot to the floor it wasn’t moving. Please God No, I said over and over. The car started going again and the other vehicle barely missed me. I was now about 4 blocks away from the kids. We kept going, the roads are all flooded and I am scared as can be. I still have no idea what direction west is and I have no idea where the tornado is at this point, I just don’t want it to be near the kids or near Chad and I.
We finally get to the movie theaters I pulled into a parking lot that was not flooded and put it in park. I took a deep breath and did everything I could not to cry because I was so overwhelmed. The kids were fine and they ran across to the car in knee high water. Hunter kept turning around and running to get his sandals over and over again. It was a much-needed laughter. We decided that it wasn’t safe to try to get home and we were going to just go over a couple blocks to the hotel and stay there for the night. We are all soaking wet but we were all safe. I went to back up the car to drive and the car wouldn’t move. It wouldn’t go forward or backwards. My head went crazy. What am I going to do? I don’t know anyone here. Phone service is very spotty and I can’t even check to see if the weather is going to clear up soon. Luckily, Chad was able to call a coworker that was able to come pick us up. We all piled in to his truck and thankfully we made it home. Please pray for those that lost everything. We were so very lucky. We will just have to deal with the car being towed to a repair facility tomorrow.
Pink Squirrel Farmstead 