In mid December we were woken up by tornado sirens at 4am and my phone alarming loudly “Seek Shelter Now” – Emergency Tornado Warning Alert. You may have seen the news around that time. More than 75 people were killed in the state as tornadoes ripped through communities. Ben, Emery, the dogs and I rushed outside into the rain and wind to get into our crawl space. It was dark, and damp, and disgusting. We stayed there for three hours. I told myself I’d never, ever live in a place where bad weather that puts my life at risk is common. Welp, here I am, and there we were. It was absolutely traumatizing for me. We had a tornado form just miles from our house, and then break up before it did any major damage, thankfully. But it was in our town. In December. And we were huddled in a crawl space with our 8 month old baby in the dark and the damp as weather raged outside. No. Thank. You.
Just two weeks later severe weather was on the horizon again and my gut told me to get the heck out of dodge. Well, my gut, or the anxiety disorder I now have living here. Or both. We were able to find an Airbnb in South Carolina, a new state for me! We left New Years Day. That weekend, a tornado touched down and pummeled the house we got our Christmas pictures taken in. We watched the news from afar as the tornado warnings blared & our neighbors were terrified. Again, I was traumatized and we weren’t even at home for that one.
We were very, very thankful we were out of town for this big storm as we would have been in the crawl space for hours, hiding.
South Carolina
We ended up going to Greenville, South Carolina for three days. We spent time downtown walking around the gorgeous, trendy little city. We couldn’t believe how clean it was! So many restaurants, coffee shops & trails with a large water fall right in the middle of the city. It was only a 5 hour drive. We really, really enjoyed getting away, even if we had knots from the storm back at the house.
| jenn at home | 