My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. It was really nice. I went to class then in the evening, Meme fixed dinner for us. Complete with purple birthday cake. (Purple is my favorite color!) Halfway through dinner, we started hearing the scanner ask for help in a few towns over because it had been leveled by a tornado. Shawn is an engineer at the local power company which means that when bad weather happens, he has to go to work. We quickly ate a piece of cake and hurried back to town. Shawn dropped us off at the house and headed to work. We have tornado warnings in our county a few times a year so it's not too much to get excited about. The kids and I were keeping an eye on the news casts when it got really calm outside, then started to hail. We made a bee-line for the basement. The lights went out within a few minutes and the phones (land-lines and cell) quit working. Eventually, the lights came on and we headed back upstairs. It's a horrible feeling knowing that the weather is so bad and my husband is out in the middle of downed power lines. Meme called to let me know that the disaster response had been activated at my hospital. After GG came to pick up my kids, I ended up at work because tornado's (I believe it ended up being 4 touch down) had hit all around our town. It was really bad. I've never been a part of anything like it. It was amazing to see the healthcare professionals that responded as well as the community and the calls we began recieving from hospitals as far away as Springfield and Memphis. People are still very generous out there. This is a video of some of the damage. Shawn said that this doesn't even begin to show how much damage there is around us.
Shawn worked 30 hours and has to be back before 7 in the morning. Please, when your power goes out, remember that there are people out there putting their lives on the line for hours on end to get your lights back on.
Today has been much better. Although my sister made me cry with this post. (Not in a bad way!) But I did get great birthday wishes that I couldn't get last night or this evening because our internet was still down. Oh, I also recieved the $500 gift card in the mail that I won in a "name that photo" contest from the blog that I love to read! New SLR camera!!!!! What a birthday present!!