Rita Cheryl accompanied me to work today, and hang the rules. No one will see her except me and Coworker B.
The news today is not good. A nursing home in Monette collapsed, and there were two confirmed dead when I went to bed last night (the New York Times is now saying just one dead, but we'll see about that). I watched it go through Mayfield, Kentucky and prayed that the damage wouldn't be bad, but well...y'know how sometimes God calms the storm and sometimes He lets it rage and then calms the child? Oh Lordy, Mayfield got hit HARD!!! Here's a picture of the damage, shared by Amir Tsarfati, one of my mother's (and my) favorite preachers.
Officials are predicting anywhere from fifty to a hundred dead in Kentucky, most of which were at a candle factory in Mayfield that apparently collapsed. Factories are dangerous places to be in a tornado, kids. Even if safety measures are in place, factories are flat-out unsafe. Anyway, the weather experts are comparing this incident to the first Super Outbreak in 1974, when Kentucky lost 77 people (31 of them were at a little place called Brandenburg). Also (this is HUGE news if you're a tornado buff), officials are saying that the Mayfield tornado was on the ground for 227 miles. That's not confirmed yet, but if it truly is one tornado then the path length has broken the record set by the legendary Tri-State Tornado, which had a 219-mile damage track UNBROKEN!!! We'll see what the officials say after the scientists get in and measure it all. Nothing, death toll or damage path or rating, is set in stone yet. With a tornado this violent, such measurements unfortunately take time.
As for me myself, I hugged Rita Cheryl and my animals and watched this mess go down. Malden got a lot of rain, a lot of wind, and a fair amount of lightning, but nothing else, thank God. Mama's fence stayed in place, and no one's roof blew off like it did in 2011. KFVS's weather department was on this storm like white on rice, and they did a wonderful job of getting the warnings and the news out. My prayers are now with the folks cleaning up, the injured, and the families of the lost. It's a terrible, terrible thing anytime, but right before Christmas it really sucks. I send my deepest love to all our readers, and I pray none of y'all were affected by these storms.
Much love to all,
RagingMoon1987
I've been thinking about you today. We got very strong winds here today, so that could have caused some chaos in places, but mainly it was brief power outages and a twenty-degree temperature drop between mid-morning to mid-afternoon. It's too bad that you can't have a doll or two at work. I would think it would be a good way to build rapport with your younger patrons, and maybe even some older ones. :) The death toll from this tornado is truly tragic.
ReplyDeleteOh, the patrons, young and old, liked the dolls. One of my older friends even commended the diversity, since they were all races and one of them (Xenia) is even blind. I was so sad about the tornado yesterday that I said to myself "Phooey on it, Rita Cheryl is coming with me."
DeleteI'm waiting with a sick sort of anticipation for this death toll. The summer after Joplin got hit the death toll crept up slowly but surely. I'm going to try and see if I can't set up a donation box at my place of work for tornado aid. I'm glad you came through it alright. Some of my friends on FB had property damage or lost loved ones.