Wanna See A Barn Disappear? (Day 2)(Photo Essay)

I already posted an article about Day One of the tornado that you can find here.

Day Two we called Alvin, our Mennonite neighbor, and he told us that the power was back on, so we headed back up to Nana and Papa's house and got them back in the house and surveyed the damage. Some down trees, branches, metal, and a piece of siding in the pool. James went on the roof and checked, but there was minimal damage to the shingles and nothing that would require repairing or replacement at this point.

All over the place there were fires. The smell really stunk up the air, but it was pretty necessary. Everyone was getting rid of the ruined wood from the wreckage of buildings. Across the street, a large fire burned all day as they got rid of the barns and what used to be part of the house.

We picked up the front porch swing that had been blown into the yard. Amazingly, it hardly had any damage at all. There were some cracks along part of the swing but that was absolutely it. It worked fine and the cracks aren't anything that will threaten to break any time soon, either.

I was very amazed at how dedicated the Mennonites are. I suppose they have to be because it's their livelihood and everything, but they got up earlier and worked far later than we did. Not to mention they rushed to their friends' aid without a second thought. Alvin next door had cut wood thinking he would build his own barn, but we found him kindly driving it over to his brother as they started rebuilding the house and one of the barns.

Upon closer inspection, we also found a good sized piece of steel in the pool. Jake used the long pool we use to vacuum the pool to manage to pull it out. It's hard to see in the pictures, but it's definitely there.

When James climbed onto the roof, I climbed after him and managed to snap a few shots before my fear of heights finally got the best of me and I had to climb back down.

We also found some very disturbing things. We realized that some sticks in the yard were actually stuck IN the ground. It's a good thing no one was under them when they came down because that would've been messy. It took Mommy and I quite a bit of effort to get them out. When we pulled this one it actually broke and we had to dig out the rest of it.

There was a somewhat amusing part, though. We found a couple of calendars that had blown into our yard, which gave us kind of a chuckle.

All in all, the clean-up is going pretty well. By the end of the day, the entire yard was raked and cleaned, which was definitely progress. It needs to be mowed still, but that comes later. At least Nana and Papa won't have to worry about all those sticks and debris!