It's been a wild few weeks of weather, even here in the upper part of the Midwest. There's usually snow on the ground right now, and the temperature generally hovers around 30 degrees.
It snowed one day, lasted on the ground for a few days, and the temperatures soared 53 degrees. It was raining, but the sky is now almost clear.
Back in Indiana, it's not unheard of for it to rain or be in the low 60s this time of year, but the temperature has been in the 70s as of late, and storms that unleash the hell that people have seen today are not usual for this time of year.
The reports of tornadoes are now up to 77, with some hitting the area in which I grew up.
I was watching our local CBS affiliate which was covering the Baltimore Ravens/Chicago Bears game, and I got to see the wind and rain pounding Chicago live which forced them to decide to postpone the game (although it took them long enough to decide while tornadoes were touching down not far from Soldier Field). The sky was dark...dark and just plain creepy.
Washington, Illinois:
Hustisford, Wisconsin:
Fifty three million people across the United States were in harm’s way as a powerful storm system raged across the Midwest on Sunday, spawning deadly tornadoes that left a path of destruction in parts of central Illinois.
Washington, Ill., near Peoria, was particularly hard hit with one resident saying his neighborhood was wiped out in seconds. Emergency crews were going door to door through damaged neighborhood in search of victims.
An elderly brother and sister who lived in a farmhouse near New Minden, Ill., were killed in the storm, Washington County Coroner Mark Styninger said. The man, 80, was pronounced dead at the scene and his sister, 78, was pronounced dead at a local hospital on Sunday.
"I stepped outside and I heard it coming. My daughter was already in the basement, so I ran downstairs and grabbed her, crouched in the laundry room and all of a sudden I could see daylight up the stairway and my house was gone," Michael Perdun told The Associated Press. "The whole neighborhood's gone, (and) the wall of my fireplace is all that is left of my house."
There are pictures and stories coming in of whole sections of towns missing. Personally, I know how hard that is to fathom; I've been through many of these storms as a former Hoosier (although I must admit that the ones I've been party to came in the typical summer and fall months, not this close to Thanksgiving.
Speaking of which, now there are many without a home for the holidays. Red Cross is working quickly to help shelter those who were affected, but with the amount of damage rising, and the number of victims going up all over the Midwest, their resources are going to be squeezed, and they will end up needing help too.
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While I was writing this, the Bears finally finished and won their game in Chicago after being down 10 when the game was delayed. It was a sweet victory in the midst of all of this mess.
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