On Top of Everything Else...

It's bad enough that we are enduring the coronavirus pandemic, but late Tuesday night / early Wednesday morning a tornado ripped through part of northern Ohio.

I went to bed on Tuesday night around 11:00.  From the distant lightning and thunder I could tell that a storm was brewing.  Before I had fallen asleep the storm hit with a fury.  There were high winds, torrential rain and heavy hail.  The hail hitting against the house made an infernal racket.  I was afraid, and I could not help but think of the Palm Sunday tornados of 1965 when I was a kid...

(That outbreak of tornados left a wake of death and destruction from Iowa to Ohio.  In my immediate area alone there were 14 deaths, and in the neighboring city of Strongsville there were 18 homes destroyed, some of them were blown completely from their foundations.  I remember going out to see the destruction a week later.  I can still see in my mind the image of a home where there was nothing left but a foundation and a toilet.)

After midnight the storm finally subsided, and I fell asleep.  The next morning there were some small branches strewn across the lawn, and the back yard was flooded.  Even today, a couple days later, the back is still a swamp.

It wasn't until later that I found out that just a few miles to the south the storm had been much more severe.  In neighboring Lorain and Medina Counties there was a tornado that left a swath of fallen trees and damaged buildings.  I called a friend who lives in Medina.  Her home was unscathed, but the tornado hit only two blocks away from her, and all along the twister's path there were enormous trees uprooted.  The photo below from the internet gives you an idea of the storm's strength.

Fortunately, from what I have read, there was only one injury reported.  The storm does not compare to the terrible Palm Sunday tornados of 1965.  However, I feel for the families that  have to deal with fallen trees and damaged homes on top of the stress of the pandemic.