Saturday night we were headed back home from a wedding in Fort Loramie. We passed by the school that I teach in on our way and it is a habit for me to always look at it as we pass. It was 10:00 at night but I just always glance at it. Little did I know one hour later it would be destroyed. I was so tired so when we got home and got the girls into bed, I went straight to bed myself. Wes was staying up and around 10:45 he came into our room and was a little nervous about the weather. He wanted to wake the girls up and head to my parents' house because we don't have a basement and there were tornado warnings all over the place. I thought he was being dramatic and I didn't want to wake the girls up a second time after they had already been woken up after the drive home. The weatherman said the storm would hit our town at 11:28 and so by 11:15 it was too late to load the girls up and head over to my parents' house. We did go up and get them and sat in our stairway (the only completely internal spot in our house) and waited for it to pass. The sky was creepy to say the least. After it passed we put the girls back to bed and continued to watch the news. It was late and dark so you couldn't see much but we they were reporting that Lake High School (where I work and 10 minutes from where we live) was hit and there were 2 reported deaths at that point.
My parents called around 12:15 and said they really wanted us to come over because there was a second round of storms that were coming around 3:00 a.m. So we packed up some things, grabbed Milo and woke the girls for a 3rd time that night. We got to my parents and we just held Mya and Stella instead of putting them to bed because we were going to have to wake them up shortly to head to the basement when the storm came again. It was such a crazy and scary night. My parents' basement ended up flooding. In the morning when the sun came out we were able to see all the damage. It was absolutely surreal. The death toll climbed to 7. The high school was completely destroyed. The elementary that I teach has not been decided on yet. The roof had been lifted up and slammed back down in the storm so they have to decide yet if it is structurally sound or if it will be condemned, as well. Graduation was supposed to be Sunday afternoon and that was obviously cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday evening. One hundred houses in the district were affected. 50 are demolished and 50 have major damage. The feeling of not being able to do anything and just wondering if all of my students are okay was making my stomach sick.
Monday afternoon they had all of the teachers meet at the K-1 building and assemble ribbons to be passed out at the graduation ceremony. It was something small that we could do, but we all left feeling like we contributed. We really just wanted to be together at this time. I have been frustrated with many things at my job over the years, but I cannot even begin to tell you how much I absolutely love all of these people. In the face of tragedy we all banded together. We really are a family and the support that everyone showed today was heartwarming. I am very much looking forward to graduation tomorrow evening to see what this community really is made of. Our superintendent told us today that we aren't going to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. We are going to rebuild because our kids are worth it. He said "Tough times don't last, but tough people do!" Well said!
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