Great Blessings

We had some sturm und drang this past weekend! Boy, howdy!



Rick is working for a trucking company out of Findlay, OH (western Ohio south of Toledo). On Saturday he had a load going to Holland, Michigan so I rode along. The company allows immediate family ride-alongs.


On the way home I was sleeping in the back and Rick went through some terrific t'storms as we drove past Perrysburg. As he got near a rest area he heard a voice whisper to get off the road until "it" passes and wait a while. So, we waited about 15-20 minutes. The weather was very windy with lightning all around us, but not directly overhead.


He turned on the weather radio and we heard that a tornado had touched down 3 miles east of Perrysburg - at about the same time we were driving through - and that the tornado was moving east towards Oak Harbor!


We got home around one a.m. and it had started raining. The lightning was right above us. When it cracked the thunder was instantaneous and the sky was as bright as noon. It was blinding.


We listened to this for a while and around 2:30 it was really intense - then the wind stopped. Rick said we had to get out! and at the same time we heard the sirens at Davis-Besse nuclear plant and around the area. We took off, thinking that at least we could hide in a ditch if we couldn't run away. There was a couple in the camper next to ours and they told Rick the next morning that they saw us leaving and decided to go to the shower house themselves. We didn't see any funnels, but apparently one did touch down near the plant.


There were 51 tornadoes in the midwest that night, and I think we had five in our area. Rick drove back up to Grand Rapids and Holland a couple of days later and said that Dundee, MI, another area that was hit, had a lot of debris on the highway and some of the buildings near Cabela's were damaged.


If I had not gone with Rick on his delivery on Saturday I would have been in the camper by myself - freaking out. If I had been safe, Rick would have stopped in Dundee (at Cabela's) to sleep that evening and from what he could see when he drove by that area, the path of the tornado came through where he usually parked.


We both feel that we were saved - if not from death or destruction - at least from panic and fear. We both had a great desire for me to ride with him on his delivery Saturday, and that is not typical. Because I was with him he didn't stop overnight at Cabela's and he did hear the whispering to get off the road for a while and be safe. The tornado went right around us at the campground. The only damage was 3" of rain. The weekend before, Memorial Weekend, there were half a dozen tent campers in the trees and that whole area was a pond Sunday morning. Wow.


I thank my Heavenly Father for His love and blessings.

You can’t sit around and wait for the storm to be over. You’ve got to learn how to dance in the rain. ~Unknown