Tornado Clean Up

The tornadoes that came through this past week hit the land that belongs to my manager's parents.  Fortunately, it didn't hit the house directly, but did knock down most of their 30 and 40 foot trees.  Somehow, they fell within inches on either side of the house but left the house proper unscathed but for a hole in the roof.  A trailer across the fence didn't fare as well and pieces of wood paneling, shingles and insulation were scattered amidst the broken limbs and brush.  For me, gathering those pieces is the hardest part.  With a couple on chainsaw duty and the rest with pick-up trucks and wheelbarrows, the broken limbs and trunks made their way to three piles smoldering in the pasture.  At first the pace was quick but soon you notice how much heavier the trees seem and how steeper the hills feel as time begins to pass.  A truth I am certain is etched into the muscles of all who pitched in.  Moving the big trunks felt a little accomplished.  A sign of my toughness.  Moving the limbs seemed like a better idea.  Having killed my back with my toughness.  The ground was soppy but luckily John's extended size tube socks had me covered with a double layer up past my knees.  They would throw diesel onto the brush piles to encourage the burn.  At one point the the flames shot up so violently and high that I could feel it warm on my face.  You learn what burns well and to throw the bigger logs to the middle of the pile.  No small feat after carrying them all morning.  By the end you are using your whole body to blindly chuck each piece as high as you can.  All three piles were far taller than we were and there was still much more to do when I left.  It is crazy what a little bit of wind can do in a matter of minutes.  The swing set had been thrown into a tree, the wooden play house swept away.  Some logs being chopped, some being burnt, one full grown monster being slowly cut into movable pieces.  But for all the sweat dropped moving trees, how preferable it is than having to search through debris for belongings.  Tornadoes are random yet specific.  They do not simultaneously take on an entire city like a hurricane or quake but from those that they hit, they take all.  A house does not survive a direct hit.  I grew up  learning to stand in doorways while the earth rolled and shook and became an adult who learned to take shelter in closets with mattresses and pillows.  The waiting is the worst part of a tornado.  An earthquake was always sudden but with a tornado, you sit, you listen and you wait.  In those moments the quiet is not your friend, it is the barrier you strain through to find the faintest clue if the storm will pass.  No more thunder.  Slower winds.  The sound like a train that tells you it's near.  Weather is a strange thing and no matter what method it takes up arms against you, it is a force against which we cannot contend.  We can run, we can hide and we can wait. 

Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all  the worlds Thy hands have made.  I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed.  Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee, how great Thou art.  How great Thou art.  - Carl Boberg