A Narrow Miss

We woke up this morning to power flickering and major winds, saw branches and leaves down all over the roads on our drive to Ayla's school this morning, and heard about trees and power lines down all over the city.  Evidently that was just a preview of the massive destruction caused by tornadoes in Alabama today and this evening.  Check out some of these pictures:

VIDEO: MASSIVE Tornado in Tuscaloosa
VIDEO: Mile Wide Tornado Hits Birmingham, AL

Thankfully (for us), the storms missed us by only about 10 miles north & south of us, hitting Tuscaloosa to the west, Cullman & Fultondale north of us and Alabaster to the south.  Hoover somehow managed to be a storm-proof area -- today at least.  We even managed to keep power all day long.

This afternoon Ben and I made a mad dash to move all our stuff in the garage around so that we could fit our new car inside it (c'mon...it's only 2 days old and we'd heard about falling trees and golf-ball sized hail) and then spent most of the evening down in our den and even set up temporary beds for Ayla & Paxton.  However...other than some ominous skies and a little bit of wind, we were spared all of the storms as we watched several areas around us being torn to shreds.

We're thankful today for our blessings and safety and praying for those who were in the eye of the storm.  The damage leaves you speechless.