Tornado...!

The end of the storm.

This picture shows the end of a tornado that went directly over our house this afternoon. You can still see the end of the tail touching the ground. When the storm passed over our house it was about 20 to 30 metres wide. [Edit: Storm chasers said it was more like 100 metres wide in places]

Our front gate.

Our great tree that welcomed people to our home.

We were all inside at the time of the storm. I had just laid down at the front of our house for a rest with Tank and Skipper. Christian and the other children were at the back of the house, also resting.

The storm took less than two minutes to pass, but the damage it did was incredible! Our saddest loss was that of two of our geese. Both our females were thrown about by the storm and died fairly quickly from injuries. Our gander was quite bereft.

Barely a tree was left unscathed in it's path. We lost one garage that was housing our unpacked things from the move. My car, the blue van was damaged. [Edit: The van took over 3 weeks to fix]

There is going to be a lot of cleaning up to do!!! But there are many things to be glad about:

We were not outside!

This was once a large pepper tree,
probably 130 years old, with a large amount of
shade (and termites no doubt)

Our neighbours were not outside! (We saw the storm go directly over their house also, they lost some sheds and have some house damage but were all safe).

We have loads of wood for the coming years!

We finished our renovations to the termite damaged area (this storm would have knocked down the house, as it is we have now found more termite damage because of the storm).

We are insured. They have been called...and now we just have to wait for that to pan out.

We arrived home at midnight today instead of midnight tomorrow. Not knowing how it all happened would have been quite shocking!

Emergency services clean up

We have WONDERFUL emergency services people. They were out within an hour clearing our roads.

We have a fantastic community! One neighbour (and parishioner) dropped everything and came right around to help. Another called the footy club to alert them of the storm and we were given the leftovers from todays footy match (We don't even know a lot of these people!!). Three other parishioners dropped over and helped clear out Christian's books from the downed garage so that they wouldn't get damaged from the rain.

Our beautiful home...Christian is near our gate.

We are so grateful to God for His wonderful protection. When all the hooha had settled down, we gathered together in the lounge room and read Psalm 46:1-3

Around our sheds.

Looking up to the back paddock.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

 though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

The trail of disaster to our neighbours place