Well......I'm 52 today.....and I don't feel any older. A little wiser perhaps and I do feel like a lucky and blessed man.
Yesterday I missed being in a tornado (ef2) by only a half mile.
Every morning I deliver a paper route for the Tulsa World. It's something I generally enjoy doing. I tell people I get paid for listening to the radio and excercising. I generally like it except for mornings like yesterday.
At 4:30 AM I was making good time and the radio was saying there would be rain or a thunderstorm hitting the west side of Tulsa (where I deliver) by 6 am.
I deliver over 400 customers and I had to make a decision because the lightning was getting closer. I decided to head to the retirement village and break off from what I call my "country part" of the route. This would enable me to do my inside portion of the route when the rain started dumping as it looked like it would do any moment. So....I'm doing the "outside" of said retirement village and was at the back side of the complex when the clouds opened up immediately. I proceded to the inside part and 45 minutes later resumed the outside portion of the route. I found that the part I had broken from originally had down power lines and trees all over the place. I delivered what I could while some places were inaccessable. While delivering this part the radio informed me Tulsa Schools had cancelled school today, so I found myself with an unexpected day off. When I returned home, the local stations were showing damage done. This same tornado on the west side was the same one I think that took the roof off the businesses at 61st and Peoria and later did damage at Southern Hills CC and the area around LaFortune Park. They later said this was a EF 2 tornado.
I feel lucky and blessed because if I had not "broken off", I would have been right in the middle of it. One house was severely damaged as well as several roofs and countless trees, street signs, etc. You can see picks at
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100514_11_A1_Seanna660014
there is a slide show at the bottom. None of these show damage of where I was (or could have been)
Here a video of where I'm talking about thanks to KJRH.
http://www.kjrh.com/mostpopular/story/Tornado-hits-Sapulpa-and-storm-damages-homes-in-W/kVNr1avEeUi9m7PsfwkAsg.cspx
So I'm 52 and alive. Life is good.
