First off, thanks for all of your kind thoughts, and words. Much appreciated.
Here's the scoop.....last Wednesday at about 1530 Barb heard the USPS guy put a package on the front porch (the light I got from Doug for the '64). She went out to get it and noticed the sky looked real, real ugly all dark and "swirly". About that time the tornado alert sirens went off. She threw the package on the floor of the den , grabbed the dogs and went to our 1/2 bath which is very small and located in the middle of the first floor. The cat (the smartest one of the bunch) hightailed it to the basement.
About that time, the fecal matter hit the whirling blades (for you folks in Rio Linda, the......ahhh hell you figure it out). She heard a very loud noise, and lots of commotion. After it all died down, she came out and found a "war zone" in all of the backyards in our neighborhood. Tree tops stacked up everywhere, trees down all over the place. Generally one hell of a mess!!
I had just arrived in Aliquippa, PA. to change trailers to come home. In all the 35 years we've been married, I've never heard her sound like that. She asked, "could you please come home??" in a very soft voice. She said a tornado had just hit our house and we had damage. I told her I'd be home in three hours. I called our youngest son Brad (down in Forest, OH) and told him what happened. Right after that, all cell service in Bellevue got very hard to use, all "spotty" and very weak. it took our other son, Rob, who lives a mile north of us 25 minutes to make it down to our house. They had very little damage.
When I finally got home, the scene was overwhelming. What I found was both boys, spouses and kids, Uncle Howard (Howie) his son Jeff all hard at work. Chainsaws running, and the big limb down on our back porch being removed. The garage was piled at least 10 to 15' high with "tree tops" from everywhere. The dog kennel behind the garage was piled about 20' deep with "tree tops". Our yard was full of "tree tops".
It has since been confirmed by the National Weather Service that 2 tornados did in fact hit Bellevue. Both were catagory F-1. Another smaller one hit Reedtown about 8 miles south of here. The track of the one that got us came from southwest of here, touching down at C.R. 308 and Gardner Rd., and following a course that took it right through the backyards in this neighborhood exiting at Gardner Rd. and Kilbourne St. It came through at tree top level, about 5' off the tops of the roofs on all of these 2 story houses. Right over the top of our garage, where the '64 was a safe and sound. The other tornado hit somewhere up around the downtown area and literally "exploded" all of the windows in every building up there.
When I find the camera (it's around here somewhere in this mess) I'll post some pictures of the damage. The bottom line is this, our little city will look drastically different henceforth. We lost many, many, many beautiful old trees. The street we live WAS all tree-lined on both sides, the trees forming a "canopy" over the roadway. Not any more!! About half of them are gone.
More later.
