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(42 Photos Below)

On the night of May 2nd, 2008...an F-3 Tornado passed over our neighborhood, and more specifically right over our house. It took a bunch of our shingles and some tar-paper off our roof, broke windows, scuffed up the outside our home, bent our garage door, and shifted our house enough that the front door doesn't close quite right. We're going to need a whole new roof and the garage door replaced...plus a variety of other repairs. (Our satellite television isn't working!)

But, our next door neighbor's house is condemned, as in our neighbor's house across the street. Both of their houses had significant portions of their roofs torn off and the interiors/belongings soaked with rain. There is damage to hundreds of homes...two were completely destroyed (just gone), and several were knocked off of their foundations. There were shingles, insulation, pieces of siding and lawn furniture every where...tons of sight-seers for two day, and our power was out for a day and a half.

But, amazingly...no one was killed. There were no serious injures. Some folks were cut with flying glass, but everyone is going to be O.K. No one in my family was hurt. When Jennifer heard the "Freight Train" sound, she gathered our three children up and they all ran to the basement. The sirens did not go off. I was at the police station at the time...and couldn't be home with them.

Its hard not to picture AsaThor battling the destructive forces of this Thurse as it descended on our community...strking it repeatedly with his hammer...rolling in conflict with it as it crashed from the sky to the ground...diverting its path to ensure that the only two homes completely destroyed were empty of people that night. And though the damage was done...the people remain, and we will rebuild. That next day I shared a beer with Thor...and congratulated him on his victory in battle.

Here's some photos....

Our roof was pretty roughed up. Even more shingles have kicked loose at this point, and we have alot of tar-paper exposed.


This is another view of our roof, with losts of plywood exposed...


That's my neighbor Clint and I up on the roof, nailing a tarp over the plywood on my roof...


The wind was really whipping. I had about 3 hours sleep, but this had to get done.


Putting in the final nails...


My wife Jennifer was helping out...taking photos...and cleaning up.


The work is done...this is me up on my roof.


My neighbor Clint declaring victory! Clint's house escaped everything except minor damage, but he was a great help to us.


Our handywork...


Ought to do it until we can get the roofing guys out to put on a new roof.


This broken window was our kids bedroom window. Softball sized hail was found after the tornado.


This is our neighbor's house...Aaron. The missing plywood from his roof flew a block away and was stuck in the side of another house. Aaron's house was condemned for occupancy that afternoon.


Aaron's garage door came loose from its tracks from the pressure of the tornado. Our garage door was still in place, but bent so much we'll have to replace it.


This is our neighbor Clint's playset. It did not make it through the storm.


Another angle of Clint's playset.


This is our neighbor's to the North of us...Rob and Sharon. Wooden playsets did very poorly in the storm.


Another shot of Rob and Sharon's playset. Our playset is metal, and cost about $120 at Walmart. It was undamaged in the storm for some reason. Didn't even tip over.


Aaron and a helper attempting to put tarps on the holes in his roof.


A scene from our roof.

Continued:

I don't know if you can see them, but there are shingles all over my yard and the neighbor's yards.


More shots of the damage to my roof.


My house had all of this mud and insulation blasted all over it. The wiinds picked up everything, and just blasted everyone's homes with debris.


Patio furniture, and everything else that was lying about was thrown into houses. Our house has gouges and scrapes like this all over it.


A neighbor across the street. Damage doesn't look too bad, but the back of their house (out of view) was really tore up.


Clint's mom...out cleaning up.


There were blue tarps everywhere...


Jennifer cleaning up shingles...she worked very hard cleaning up.


The city's response to the tornado was amazing. As an example, the had these big trash trucks circling our neighborhood all day picking up garbage, shingles, wood, or whatever else you were able to drag to the curb.


The kids weren't going to let a tipped over playset stop their fun. They made a whole game out of it, and said they were playing "Titanic." The boy and girl in the middle are my Nathan and Elizabeth. Ethan is the smaller boy near the top.


Aaron in good spirits considering. His roof was tarped, his garage and windows boarded up, and he was off to stay in a hotel.


We drove around and took some photos to show some of the damage that was done. The whole side of this garage exploded outward.


The orange sticker was the city's declaration that no one was supposed to stay in these homes until they were repaired, because of the severe amount of damage to the homes.


This is near the area where the tornado did the most damage...


This was a home. Can you see where it used to be. Its completely gone.


This is another angle. See the cement stairs climbing up to nothing?


The remains of another house...


A lot of people were moving all their belongs out, to prevent further damage to them.


Another shot of ground-zero of where the tornado touched down...


And another. The homes completely destoyed were empty, but some heavily damaged homes did have people in them. Everyone survived.


Tornados are so incredibly powerful....


The day after the tornado. The kids were tired, but in good spirits. This is Joshua...


Nathan and Elizabeth. The night before they had been very scared, but had listened well to their mother. They handled it all really well...


Hail Thor!

Mark

WOW Amazing Mark. Glad everyone is OK.

The storm Thursday evening was intense. It has been a while since the winds blew that hard here in Lee's Summit. We were ready to head for shelter ourselves that night.

I am happy to hear that despite the damage everyone is safe. I was worried about everyone up north... Glad you made it through ok. *HUGS*

Thank you!

Mark

I live in the Parkville area and the winds were intense I was sure that I was going to have damage but all that got damaged were my tiki torches! I am happy Mark that your family got to safety and all is fine.

I appreciate it. My wife Jennifer was very brave, and just instinctively woke up, heard the noise, scooped up the kids, and scurried for cover. I don't think a thought even crossed her mind. It was all action and movement...and thinking came later.

:-)

Now we wait for the insurance guy to show up to assess things, and our satellite television to be fixed!

Mark

Mr. Mark.
I am glad that you and your family were okay through this; I know the storm was quite something.
glad all of you are doing well.

Thank you, Margaret...

:-)

Mark