We were on vacation in Washington D.C. last week when we found out about the tornadoes that struck the Greeley, Colo. area, where Mike and I lived for many years. The tornadoes didn't make news in D.C. -- I just happened to be browsing the Internet one day, logged on to a Denver TV station's Web site and saw photos of the tornado damage.
The tornadoes hit a 35-mile region last Thursday. Amazingly, only one person was killed. The hardest hit was Windsor, a charming little town between Greeley and Fort Collins. One tornado came within two blocks of our former pastor's house. One of my good friends was at work when the tornado struck her building in Windsor. There was no basement, so she and her co-workers went inside a first-floor bathroom. She and another one of colleagues prayed aloud the entire time. "Were you afraid?" I asked her. "No, I wasn't afraid," she said. "I just felt this incredible peace."
She told me it didn't look or sound like what tornadoes are supposed to be like -- or at least what other people have described them to be. Photos reveal a low, big black cloud, but no funnel. My friend said she and her colleagues watched the storm for quite a while before it became apparent that a tornado was headed straight toward them. There was no sound of a freight train. My friend said it was eerily silent, then suddenly everyone's ears started popping because of the air pressure. When they ventured outside a few moments later, they saw cars in the parking lot with their windows literally sucked out of them. And across the street buildings that had been standing a few minutes before looked like piles of sticks. Click here to see aerial footage of the tornado damage.
Since the Weld County tornadoes, even worse storms have hit Iowa and Minnesota. I'm watching a news story about the damage there as I write this, and I'm amazed at what I see. One town was obliterated, entire neighborhoods now just mountains of stuff.
It's hard to put storms like these in perspective unless it directly affects you. Still, the fact that the tornadoes in Weld County hit so close to home for us -- we know so many people in the area -- makes me realize how fragile our lives really are. The tornadoes will undoubtedly draw the Northern Colorado community closer together. I've always thought people in the Greeley area are the salt of the earth, and what's happened will make them even more so.
One Windsor tornado victim was quoted in a news story today as saying, "I have my old life, and I have my new life" -- meaning her life before the tornado, and her life after. All of it certainly makes the worries of everyday life (rising gas prices, work stress, family woes, etc.) seem more trivial -- and more bearable.
