A twister! A twister!

No, seriously. A TWISTER!

I took this picture while getting my hair done yesterday. All I had was my cell phone, so the pics aren't very good. I was so mad that my camera wasn't in my car!

I got off work a little after 3pm and went to get my hair done at a new place in the Lakeland/Arlington area (in other words, I went through all this craziness with a bunch of strangers). I knew bad weather was expected, but I'd heard it wouldn't be until around 7pm. So, around 4:30, I was sitting there with foil all over my head, and we heard via my hairdresser's police officer husband that a tornado had touched down in Bartlett. I called and checked on Mom and the kids, who were working on homework and had no idea what was going on. After that, it seemed like the weatherman (thanks, Dave) announced a new tornado sighting every 30 seconds--it was insane! However, the weather was still fine where we were (not even raining!), so we weren't too worried. . .until one of the girls pointed outside and said, "Oh my gosh! There it is!" And we saw this (at this point I was too chicken to step outside the shop, hence the light reflections in the window).

same one, when it had moved a little further down the road (I stepped outside for this pic)

Less than five minutes later, a second one came along what looked like the same path. There might have been another smaller one in between these two, but it was hard to tell.

I know y'all are probably thinking it was crazy for us to stand outside and take pictures instead of huddling up in the bathroom. But these tornadoes (which I've learned from recent internet research are called wedge tornadoes) were pretty far away and moving forward (to the right in the pics). For the Memphis people, I was on Hwy 64, and it looked like these tornadoes were around Hwy 70 and Brunswick. If they had at all looked like they were turning and coming toward us, we would've taken cover. I wasn't really scared until we looked out the back door and saw the cloud in the picture at the beginning of this post (Jill can attest to this, as she got a "pray!" text message from me when we saw it!). That one looked just as tornadic as the others, only it was close and heading right for us. We could also hear this one, so that was pretty scary. However, the closer it got, the higher it got. Fortunately, it never touched down.

I'd never seen a tornado before, so it was a pretty exciting evening! And now I think there's a small part of me that wants to be a storm chaser. Maybe in my next life. All in all, there were at least nine tornadoes to touch down in Shelby & DeSoto counties. Crazy!

Sadly, around 55 families will not remember 2/5/08 as the first time they saw a tornado. They will remember it as the night their parents died or the last time they talked to their sister. Many will remember it as the night they lost the homes they grew up in. One of our ministers' daughters lost her home in Jackson, TN. She, her husband, and son stayed safe under a mattress in their bathtub while their house crumbled around them. I'm sure all these families will be in your prayers as they will mine.

I found a couple videos on YouTube of the Bartlett tornadoes. I'm guessing these are the ones I saw, just a little further down the road.

FYI. . .three of my pictures are on our NBC station's site. They were asking for pics last night, so I sent them in. Click here to see mine and lots that are better than mine. Mine are the first three.