Dreams, Nighmares & Reality

A week ago I had a dream that we left the house for something, and of course left Molly there. Then a tornado hit and Molly ran away. Pretty simple dream, but enough to freak me out. So last week when we went to eat at my parent's house for dinner, Andrew asked if we should take Molly with us. There were storms coming, and of course my dream freaked me out and I said YES!

Today, we had plans to go out to lunch with Andrew's parents. We left around noon and decided to go to Fulin's, assuming only strong storms were coming. It began to rain pretty hard and sometimes even hail while we ate. Halfway through out meal, we look out the window to see a dark twisting cloud rise up over Dick's Sporting goods. Next thing I know, you hear multiple people yelling "tornado!" and Andrew yelling at me to run to the bathrooms. Instantly I start crying, because the direction of the forming twister is the direction our neighborhood. My poor Molly is all alone and I have no idea if she is safe or has managed to break out and run because she is scared. My dream feels like it is coming true. Except it felt like a nightmare.

No power in the restaurant, all the customers, waiters, and cooks are crammed into the men's and women's restroom. I am not worried about the fact that I am leaning on and touching dirty bathroom stall walls, but I am worried about Molly.

After a few minutes, we feel it is all clear, and head back out to finish what we could of our lunch and hopefully see a break in the weather to go home. Once we were ready, we asked about our waitress, who had been missing for a while. We weren't worried that she wasn't taking care of us, but wanted to pay our bill before trying to get out of there. The poor girl was still in the bathroom crying. She was terrified. We got our bill paid and got out of there fast.

Driving home, we had no idea what to expect. I saw street lights and posts bent. Trees pulled up out of the ground, and a couple houses along the way completely gone...

We turned into our neighborhood and went down the entrance that takes you buy the walking trail and playground. There was damaged...mostly fenced blown down and parts of roofs blown off. Pieces of siding here and there. We pulled up to our house to find the only damage was the lock on our fence gate was busted and so the gate didn't stay closed. Other than that, we found a neighbors trampoline and three different garbage cans. We made out well. Before checking out any damage, we ran inside to make sure Molly was safe. She was so frightened. She had been clawing at the front door base boards, trying to dig her way out. There is a white powder all over our front hardwood from her efforts. I so so happy to see her safe!

After the weather had cleared a bit more, we headed outside as most of our neighbors did. Our house was so lucky...it was on the very edge. We walked down the street and took the first right and this is what we saw:

Unbelievable...I don't think anyone was hurt. I think the people that lived in the houses that were completely destroyed were at work.

The last picture is what we only assume is one house on top of another, becase this morning there were two houses there. Pray for these people.