At Least Bailey Had a Good Time...

Last night was an "exciting" night for us here in Cedar Park. While watching the TV, news reports started coming in about some severe weather headed our direction. The longer we watched, the more the local weather man kept coming on with updates. Then the warnings started...

"If you are in the path of this storm, take shelter immediately..."

Tornadoes reported; softball sized hail; 92 mile-per-hour wind gusts. Fabulous!

Normally I am the squeamish one when it comes to severe weather, but when Tammie told me she was going to start packing pillows and blankets into the middle bathroom, I figured things were getting bad.

"This storm is headed for the Cedar Park area, and the storm indicates strong rotations with possible tornadoes on the ground right now..."

Apparently the weather team has a new "index" which predicts the likelihood of an actual tornado. This BTI was at 8.0 in 1997 when Jarroll, TX was wiped off the map. Last night it hit 8.0 again, and the weatherman was worried.

As the storm approached we loaded the dogs in the tub, even gave them a pillow to curl up under (which they did), packed the small guest bath with pillows and blankets, and loaded Tammie and the baby on the floor. I stayed in the bedroom watching the news reports, trying to see how bad this might be. Every indication coming from the weatherman and radar said the the rotating clouds, 90 mph winds, hail, and tornadoes were going to pass right over us. GREAT!

The winds started picking up and the rain started, so I headed into the bathroom to ride out the worst. Tammie and I were both scared, mostly now because we had to protect Bailey from what was to come.

Bailey, on the other hand, was having a great time! At one point we put a blanket over our heads, and Bailey smiled and laughed. This was fun! She talked to her Eeyore doll and had a bite to eat. Laughed and smiled some more and played with everything she could get her hands on. Guess she knew something we didn't.

For all the doom-and-gloom that was predicted for us we got off with hardly any rain at all. No hail; no wind damage; definitely NO tornadoes (at least not in our neck of the woods). I don't mind preparing for nothing, as long as we've done everything we can to protect our precious little Hope.

As we peeled ourselves off the floor we assessed how things had gone. Everyone did fine, including the pups. They actually kept going back into the bathroom to curl up on all of the soft pillows and blankets piled up. Bailey was wide awake and cooed and talked to us for a while before she finally fell asleep. Mom and dad soon crashed as well. It's exhausting just worrying about what may happen.

Turns out Austin proper had a worse time of it than us...and they weren't even predicted to have tornadoes. Sorry Austinites...