Tornado and the Tree – Miracle or Coincidence?

The wind was blowing, the sky was filled with clouds, the rain was about to fall, and the kids wanted to play in the back yard. OK, I told them, but when the wind became more fierce and the rain picked up, I told them to stand under the carport, which faced the front yard, while I ran inside the house to close the windows.

We lived in the middle of a cul-de-sac, with a back yard that stretched the length of four other back yards. A house sat on both sides of ours and a tall weeping willow stood in the northeast corner of our back yard lot where the kids had been playing until the wind picked up. 

With all of them stationed securely in the carport, I ran though the house closing one window after another until I saw a greenish cast in the sky that foretold the possibility of a tornado. In paralyzing fear, I stopped mid-shut as I watched objects float by one of the windows. 

My babies were outside and this looked like the outskirts of a tornado. I shook myself out of my shock and ran outside. But before I got there, a large THUMP made the house feel as if it had been lifted from its foundation.

I gathered my three youngest children, all of whom were in a state of shock. They felt the impact too. I pulled them inside while I finished closing the windows, my heart bouncing off the walls of my chest. 

The cause of the THUMP turned out to be the giant weeping willow. It had crash-landed in our back yard, falling across the lawn where the kids had been playing before I brought them to the carport. Its uppermost branches landed by our back door.

I will never know if a tornado caused the tree to fall, but something uprooted that tree and caused it to land flat on the ground covering the back yard all the way up to our back door. Thankfully, it hit no other home around us, nor did it ruin our home. It didn't even break the fence.

What I'm most grateful for, though, is that Some Thing or Some One saved my children from being in the back yard when that tree landed. Only minutes passed after I had moved them to a different spot. If I hadn't moved them, all three would have been crushed by that tree.

For information about Preparing for a Tornado, click the link. 

Visit the Tornado Facts web site to see more photos of tornadoes and their aftermath by clicking the link.

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