this week's lesson: you can't outwit the weather.

i know i have been pretty cavalier about things like tornadoes, especially living in iowa.  i mean, only two weeks ago we had a warning that amounted to basically nothing.  so thursday night some of us were hanging out in the kitchen just sort of ignoring the bad weather until it started to hail.  then we decided to go on the balcony and watch it while drinking wine.  we even heard that wal-mart had gotten hit on the south side of town (and there was a big cheer), but i think we all had the "until i see it coming" attitude.  well, after hanging out up there for awhile, burgess came upstairs and said "i can see it!"  so clearly we got smart about it and ran for the basement.  since i'm on the first floor, i ran into my room on my way down to grab my bag (because clearly i will be needing my drivers licence after a torndao, i should have grabbed shoes that were not flip-flops instead) and when i was in my room all of the sudden i could feel the wind getting stronger through my window.  i may have heard it too, but between the alcohol and the fact that a TORNADO WAS COMING BY i honestly don't remember.  also, that is when the electricity went off, and people started yelling.

so we gathered in the basement while the lightening outside was like a strobe light and i tried to call laura while constantly being cut-off.  we didn't stay down for very long, and when we went up to the porch, it didn't look so bad.

but it came very, very close to our house.  a lot of the damage in my neighborhood is on washington and iowa, one and two blocks north of college.  so we were standing outside drinking beer/wine/whatever and trying to call people, ian's cousin ryan came over and said that the apartment building by his lost the roof and i think he mentioned a gas leak (he lives, i think, on washington).  all we could see from our house were a couple of downed trees and some power lines.  eventually, melody and i decided to investigate, so we walked up summit towards the damage.  there was a HUGE tree that fell on someone's truck, and then when we got the corner we saw that an entire electrical pole was in the street, not just lines.

after that, we walked some more (drinking, so it's all sort of a haze, although it probably would have been anyway) up washington, to governor, and then we saw the alpha chi omega house, which keeps being shown on the news.  to stumble upon that was just surreal, the entire east wall of the house was just gone, and there were bunk beds just sitting there, exposed.

we walked north another block to iowa, and could hear a very loud hissing noise, and smelled the gas, so we quickly walked away from that.  i still really haven't seen what iowa looks like, but i imagine it's pretty much the same.

so we walked elsewhere...i know we walked through college green park, just a couple of blocks from our house.  the park is basically a gazebo, a small playground, and some beautiful trees that must be at least a hundred years old.  they are all down, almost every single one of them. 

we also went downtown, and we were some of those drunken idiots walking around with open beer cans.  i know, stupid.  by that point i was already pretty drunk, which seems to be my reaction when weird stuff happens.  i wasn't trying to be rude or anything by it. it was crazy downtown, there were police trying to keep everyone off of the ped mall, students everywhere, apparantly there was looting going on and stuff.  it was just nuts.  after awhile of that, we went back to the house and hung out on the balcony, being loud.

friday morning i woke up very early (6:30) and there were some tree removal folks removing that HUGE tree off of the truck.  melody and i decided, after i called in to work to say i wasn't going to go in, to walk around again and see what was happening.  we pretty much took the same path as before, i think, but it's even more unreal when you can actually see what's going on.  there were people everywhere doing the same thing and taking photos, and even then the traffic on college street was pretty bad.  i think burlington was closed down or something, because college is never that busy normally.*  anyway, i took more photos of everything except you can actually see things in the daylight ones.  it's just so bizarre.

a bunch of us went to anomy house to help clean up.  they are right next to that sorority house that was so badly hit, but most of the damage was to the windows and trees, thankfully.  when we got there, the roofers were already there and said they would board up windows, so all we really had to do was clean up glass.  i felt mostly in the way, though.  after that was done, and lunch at summit, i decided that i would shower and come to ottumwa, where i am now. 

at first i really wanted to leave because i felt like i was in the way, i was tired (i'm still tired, i can't sleep, which could just be me, or could be because of this), and i really felt like i needed to know what was happening.  but now i want to go back, because it's hard to see all of this on the news and in the papers.  i'm so, so grateful that i still have a house (and my car), but that doesn't necessarily make it easier.  even though when i try to help i always feel like i'm doing the opposite, not being able to is just as hard.  i don't know.  anyway, i will finish editing my photos later and make an album.  i took a lot that night, and most of them are bad, but some of them might be interesting.  i just can't handle this very slow internet connection my parents have.

*because everyone's reaction should be when a state of emergency is declared somewhere "hey, let's go drive there and gawk and all the unlucky people!"  causing traffic jams is most DEFINITELY the most helpful thing in a situation like that.