Back Home Again...

We are back home in Panama City. We left Jacksonville at abut 8:30AM and made it to Ron's parents by 1:30PM. The traffic on I-10 was heavy but steady so we made decent time. It was amazing the number of utility and tree trucks we encounterd on the way home. I haven't seen caravans of vechicles like that in years. It was cool to see how much help was on the way.

We got to my parents house first. Their place did really well in the storm. They had no damage on thier property. They did have ALOT of limbs down on thier property, so they'll have a fair bit of yard work to get it looking spiffy again. We picked up Ron's truck and Kiel's car that were parked in thier garage and drove home. I must confess I was a bit nervous not knowing exactly what to expect upon returning home. However, my worrying was for nothing. We didn't have any damage to our house either. Just like my parents, we had a lot of tree limbs and pine needles in our yard. So we feel very, very fortunate not to have any damage.

We unloaded the van and went to work. Kathy stayed inside and unpacked us, did laundry and cleaned out the refridge. We had to through away alot of food since we were without power for nearly 24 hours. The boys and I tackled the yard - first we took the boards off the windows then we picked up limbs, mowed, used the blower and put everything back in the yard where it belongs. It took the three of us about three hours to get looking normal again. It normally takes all three of us about an hour, so there was alot more work than usual but it looks good.

I spoke to my next door neighbor and he told me about the hurricane and the tornados (he stayed). He said we had a tornado drop down from the sky about 1/2 mile from our house and before it touched it went back up and then moved on and landed in Callaway. He said he thought we were going to get hit bigtime. Most people we have spoke to say that the Hurricane portion of the storm wasn't too bad because the storm went west a bit - we did get some pretty fiesty winds though. They have said that the tormados that came from the hurricane were unbelievably scary, a dozen of them hit town an hour. I don't need to see any more tornados have seen enough of them in Illinois.

I'm sure we'll have more stories and experiences to pass on as we speak with our friends. Right now we wanted everyone to know that we made it home safely and that our home has no damage and we have cleaned up from the storm. So our house hold is pretty much back to normal. We haven't been in town yet to see how things are looking and if business's are getting back to normal. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, phone calls and emails. We appreciate your concern and support.

Ron, Kathy, Kiel and Katlin