Currently we are in Columbus Georgia while Ty installs security systems for the summer. Our hotel is super nice and we have a suite which is wonderful. It comes with a kitchen and living area and the bathroom is pretty big...plus they feed us breakfast every morning and dinner four nights of the week. Columbus is really nice and we have everything we would need right by our hotel. Ty is still learning how to do the job and has been going with a few guys to help them learn. He should be on his own soon and then they might be moving us to Albany Georgia, but we will see. I have just been unpacking stuff and relaxing in our room or out at the pool. The weather has been great these past fews days that we have been here...maybe even a little too hot ha. Speaking of the weather, we had quite the experience driving out here...
This is a huge cross that was on the side of the road in Texas
We went through 8 states to get here: Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennesse, Mississippi, and Alabama. It was a very pretty drive from Oklahoma on ha...Texas and New Mexico were dry and flat. It rained quite a bit on our drive out here. When we got to Mississippi on Wednesday the 27th it started to rain extremely hard and we saw lots of places that were flooding. I didn't know it could rain as hard as it did and there were a few times that we could hardly see anything while driving (which was freaking me out). Then we heard on the radio that there was a tornado warning in the area. I started to worry and Tyler told me it was just a warning and it probably wasn't a big deal. We kept on driving until they got on the radio again and said that a tornado has in fact touched the ground and was on it's way to the city New Albany. As soon as we heard that we looked to see where we were at and sure enough the next exit was New Albany. We both didn't know what to do since we have never been in this situation before. The radio said to not be in our cars so we took the next exit and went into a Wal Mart. When we walked in they told us they are asking everyone to hang out in the back of the building until the tornado passed. We were there for twenty minutes and then they said it was all clear and we were ok to leave. The tornado must of curved and headed somewhere else because it ended up not hitting New Albany luckily. We got back to our car and the rain had slowed down quite a bit so we figured we had missed the storm and started on our way again.
We kept hearing the tornado warnings but wasn't sure where we were at in Mississippi to be able to tell if it was coming our way or not. It started to rain harder than it ever had and then huge hail balls were hitting our car and it sounded like they were going to break the windshield. Tree branches were falling out of the sky and we started to get really worried again. We pulled under an overpass to hang out there for a minute since we couldn't see anything and didn't want to be driving in case the tornado came our way (Plus we had seen a lot of cars previously pulled under the overpasses and figured they knew what they were doing). We sat there for awhile and made a plan to run to the top of the overpass and hide under there when the tornado came. Just as we were about to get our of our car they announced on the radio to not hide under an overpass so we took off again in our car. We went a few more exits and then it was starting to get extremely bad and with the rain and hail and tree branches fallling out of the sky we could hardly see anything. We got off on the next exit and it happened to be this tiny town called Tremont. There was this little grocery store there and a few people were standing outside of it. We walked over to them and they told us the tornado is heading our way. I was about in tears and asked them what we are supposed to do. An older man took us back behind his house to a bomb shelter and told us we needed to hide out in there. When we were walking back to it everything was flooded and we were basically walking in huge puddles. We both were completely soaked and muddy. There were other people in the bomb shelter when we got there. It was old and gross but it was the safest thing we had. A little girl was in there and she started crying because her dad wasn't there with them and she was worried. I had to do everything to hold myself back from crying too. I was so scared! I called my mom and told her what was going on...(which was probably not the best idea because I just worried her). Ty and I both said prayers and sat and waited. We were underground for about twenty minutes and then they told us it was all clear and the storm passed. We got out and again it wasn't raining nearly as hard as it was before. We were lucky again and the tornado turned and missed us. I know we were only a few miles from it though and I am so grateful that we pulled off when we did. The people we were in the bomb shelter with informed us the tornado was heading to Alabama, which was the way we were going as well. We drove back to a town in Mississippi called Fulton and stayed the night there. I didn't sleep all that night because I was so freaked out and worried another tornado would come while we were sleeping. We didn't know where else to go though because there were a few tornados all around us that they found and so we just stayed put.
We woke up the next morning and saw all of the destruction on tv and felt so grateful that nothing had happened to us. The skies were clear and we left Mississippi and continued on our way to Georgia. We did have to drive through Birmingham Alabama to get to where we were going and that was a city one of the tornados struck. It was so sad to see everything torn up like it was and I couldn't believe how much damage it caused. The electricity was out in most of Birmingham and none of the stop lights were working so it took us a few hours just to get through that one town. We ended up arriving in Georgia at about 4 thursday afternoon. I was extremely grateful that we made it there and I felt so bad for all those that were affected by the tornado. On the news it said it was the second biggest storm the south has ever had and killed around 300 people. I still couldn't sleep for a couple nights after because I was worried. It is crazy to me that we just happened to be here when all of this happened. Hopefully when we get to Birmingham in a month or so I can volunteer my time to help clean up the mess and help those in need. Things have been starting to get better since we have been in Georgia now and hopefully there won't be any more tornados here this summer or we might be heading home early! ha jk
Here are some pictures of the tornado destruction we passed through in Alabama
You can't see it very good but this whole area was wiped out and was a complete mess!
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