Definitely NOT how I wanted to spend my weekend!

I left work Friday it a wonderful mood.  I was taking Blake to a show on Saturday. Went home to switch vehicles to put gas into the dog van, get my check deposited and then lounge at home.  I went home, groomed Blake up a little.  Had grilled steaks (a t-bone!) with dad.  All of this was over about 6:30 or so.  I had just got a new movie from netflix that we were going to sit down and enjoy since mom was still out of town.  So I started letting the dogs in and out again.  I got Blake and Marin in about 7:25 then went to sit with dad on the front porch (he was watching it storm a little).  Lexi (the neighbors daughter) was standing on the porch with us, as they had just gotten home from her basketball game and she was waiting for her mom to unlock the door. 

The sky was weird.  It was a yellowish-green color.  The clouds started moving in.  But not like usual.  They were rotating in, not just moving.  In the distance we could hear the rain and wind.  The wind was loud.  As it got closer it was really loud.  It sounded like a train crash.  Then there was a huge crack of thunder, Lexi ran home and me and dad ran inside.  By the time we closed the door and looked out the living room window the dogwood tree in our front yard had blown over, roots and all.  We ran to the basement.  We were in there maybe 60 seconds and it was over.  We came back upstairs.  It was about 7:40 at that time.  We looked out the kitchen window, and there was devastation.  Everywhere.  We went to the back porch. Winds were calm, just rain.  There was a shed in the lot above our house, it wasn't there anymore.  The debris from it was in our yard and the neighbors hard.  Our huge wheeping willow tree that was hundreds of years old, basically cut in half.  As with the pines down the alley behind the house. 

A tornado hit. Pulaski, VA of all places.  We're entramped by mountains all around.  This doesn't happen here. But it did.  The NWS said that it hit Pulaski at 7:33, which makes sense based on my timeline.  I had just barely gotten the dogs in.  It happened too fast to be scared.  Another tornado hit about 3 miles from my house in Draper at 7:37 pm.  I know that I don't want to live it again.  I watched 2 neighbors over the weekend have to move all of their belongings out in the matter of hours. 

We suffered roof, chimney and siding damage.  Our fence is almost all destroyed.  We got off luckier than some.

It is complete devastation here.  I've lived in the same house for 20 years and this place will never be the same.