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Like everyone else, I will never forget that night. When the 1st siren went off, we were watching TV, & they showed the radar. The radar looked like the storm/tornado was going to hit the north side of town. I was concerned, because our daughter was at the airport. I called her cell phone & told her to get away from the north side as soon as she could. She told me not to be worried, she was on her way to her boyfriend's house, & was now on the Isthmus, heading for Fitchburg. Of course, we continued to watch the weather, & the weather forecaster is then pointing to an area in Fitchburg that could be hit, just because of the direction of the clouds. I called Lori back again, & told her that she & her boyfriend need to get to his house right away, & get into the basement. "Not to worry, Mom, I'm on Fish Hatchery Rd."
My husband & I went outside, to see the sky. The sky directly above our house was blue. But it was black to the north. The wind seemed to be blowing the clouds away from us, so we weren't concerned. Our next door neighbors were outside painting, & my husband (Cary) jokingly told them that they better hurry up, before the tornado comes. Since the storm was supposed to bring hail with it, we asked Rick & Melody Johnson if they wanted to pull their car off of the street, & park it underneath our garage overhang. They thought about it for a minute, but then chose not to, as they figured the trees would slow the hail down, & prevent any damage to the car.
It then started to rain, so we took temporary shelter underneath our overhang. As we were looking up, I noticed that some of the clouds seemed to be moving in a circular motion, & pointed it out to Cary. No sooner did I say something to him, when it got extremely loud. We made a mad dash for the basement! Just as we got down there, the lights went out, & we heard a loud thump. Our cat came running down the stairs like there was no tomorrow. After being down there for a couple of minutes, I told Cary that maybe he should shut the basement door, because if it was a strong tornado, we don't want to be sucked out of the basement. Well, it was already over by then. Cary went to the top of the steps, & saw that the 7 white pines behind Marty Wheelock's house (picture #6) had been sheared off.
When I came up, I went directly to the front of the house, & couldn't see out our front windows in the dining room, as the massive pine tree, that was between our driveway & the Johnson's driveway, was laying across our driveway, & lying over the overhang. Someone was shining a flashlight into the window. I didn't know the person at the time. She said she was looking for her husband, who's car was parked, & left running, in the street in front of our house. I told her that I was sorry, but he wasn't at our
house.
I called Lori (our daughter), & told her not to come home tonight. Though she wanted to see the damage, I told her that there were power lines down everywhere, & it wasn't safe. She should stay with a friend. I was terrified, not knowing the extent of the damage. We didn't go out our front door, as it was blocked by the pine tree. As we went out the back door, & around the house, we saw trees down every where! There were power lines down in the street & behind our house. Slowly, the rest of the neighbors on the block began to come out & survey the damage.
My husband's parents live in the lower block of Woodside Terrace. I tried to call them, to make sure they were ok. There was no answer. At that time, I had no idea how far the damage went. One of my neighbors told me that he was walk down to my in-laws, to check on them. We were amazed to see that the damage was basically our block, & just 1-2 houses on lower Woodside. When we got to my in-laws' house, it was dark (of course), so I tried the door. It was locked. I had to knock for several minutes, before my mother-in-law came to the door. I asked if they were alright. She said, "Of course, we're in bed." I asked her if she was aware of the storm. She said she saw debris flying in the sky, & mentioned to my father-in-law that maybe they should go to the basement, but they didn't. Since the power was out, they thought they'd just go to bed. I asked her if she knew what happened, & she didn't. I told her about the tornado, but also told her that no was hurt.
We went back up to our block. It was like a maze, trying to make our way back to our house. We had to stay on the even side of Woodside, where there were no power lines near the street. After finding Cary, & let him know that his parents were fine, that they had no damage down there.
We continued to check on neighbors, & assess the damage. We didn't know what to do. We just couldn't believe the destruction. It didn't do much good to go into the house, as it was dark, with no power, so we stayed outside, & talked with neighbors. The fire department came by, door to door, to make sure everyone was ok, as did the disaster team from the Red Cross. We couldn't tell if Jim Edwards was home. His car was in the driveway, but there was no answer at his door. We notified the fire department of our concerns, & they went to check on him. They determined he wasn't home. About an hour later, Jim appeared from no-where. He said he was on the bus, on his way home from work, when the storm hit. The bus couldn't get any where near our homes, so he had to walk several blocks. We were just glad to see him, & to see that he was ok.
I think it was about 10:30 or 11pm before we went back into the house, & tried to go to sleep. That was not going to happen. None of us could sleep. The next morning, we got up again, & went out to survey the damage, in the daylight. Thank goodness Rick & Melody chose not to park their car in our driveway. Yes, it had lots of branches on it, but they were small enough that they didn't' even scratch the car. Had they parked in our driveway, it would have been smashed by the pine tree.
MG&E & the City of Madison crews were there very early on Thursday morning. They were fantastic. Very professional, & they showed a lot of empathy for what had happened. They worked very hard for the next 2 days, helping us clean up the damage & mess.
Below are some pictures of the storm damage. The 1st two pictures are looking down Woodside Terrace, from in front of our house, at 521. Pictures 3, 4 & 5 are of the pine tree laying across the front of our house. Picture # 6 is of the pine trees behind Marty Wheelock's house, at 517 Woodside.
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