Well, around 5am on June 23rd, Johnny wakes me up because the tornado sirens were going off. It's been years since I'd actually heard the tornado sirens. He turns on the news and they were saying something about a false alarm. So I laid back down to sleep. About 5 minutes later, Johnny comes back in saying the tornado sirens are going off again and this time it's not a false alarm. I grabbed Milo off my pillow and picked up my laptop and purse on my way to the basement. Johnny grabbed Angel and led Bandit downstairs. We put the kitties and Chihuahua puppies in Aubry's room...but Milo got out when Aubry went back in to grab something. Of course he ran right under the bed upstairs in our room. So while Johnny and the girls were waiting out the storm downstairs in the bathroom, I waited for Milo to come out from under the bed. He did eventually come out, though...right about the time the storm was over anyway. :P
While there wasn't an actual tornado, there was a lot of straight-line wind damage throughout the town...a LOT of broken branches and even entire trees were gone. We lost a tree in the storm. It was actually one we've lost branches from before...but this time the trunk snapped and the whole tree came down. Here's a picture of Ashlyn standing next to it to kinda give you an idea about the size of the tree. It was about as tall as the tree right behind it (in the middle of the photo)...they were both planted at the same time.
My parents came out the evening of June 24th to help us start cutting the tree up so we could get rid of it. We couldn't get it all, though, because my dad's chainsaw needed a new chain to get through the trunk of the tree. They came back over today along with my uncle to help us finish the rest of the tree. Dad was busy cutting while Ashlyn, my uncle, and I loaded the branches into my Dad's truck to take to the brush dump where the city workers will chip all the trees into mulch. We had three truck loads just for this tree! We still have to deal with the stump, but the bulk of the mess is gone now.
We still have a few months left of storm season to go...but hopefully we won't have anymore damage. I've had enough tree hauling for the year! :P