{I intend to fight like a girl}

First, thank you for asking Jen. I'm fine here. The storms woke me up around 5am. The gate on the fence is right next to my bedroom window & wasn't locked, so the wind was banging it open & shut. That combined with the front porch screen door slamming woke both me & Emma up.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/damagemap

I'm about 70 miles south west of Orlando, so the bad stuff was well north of me. (You can actually pull that map around and go south west & see where St Petersburg is in compairson, follow Interstate 4, through Tampa) There was some small touch downs closer to me, but no reports of damage. We have friends in Deland who we've confirmed are OK.

The photos bring back not only memories of our summer of hurricanes a couple years ago (though I'd take a hurricane over a tornado anyday, at least you get a warning) but also of the tornados of February 1998. I remember going to bed, hearing a noise & thinking 'it would suck if that was a tornado...but I'm sure it's just a train.' I woke up to the radio the next morning talking about areas that aren't safe to travel to, roads shut down, school closures, the whole deal. I thought, what did I miss last night?! Turns out the noise I heard was the touchdown of a small tornado a few miles from our house. A coworker, who thankfully was not home, lost her entire home. The only thing she was able to salvage was the clothes that had been in the washer & dryer. It's a very scary thing and I'm definatly thinking of the families affected by the recent storms.

On a somewhat related note, Billy has very clear memories of this tornado that hit his hometown. He was 5 years old & can still describe the day in details, including how his dad laid on top of him to protect him. Scary stuff.