We Survived The Tornado

I know so many of you were wondering (one parent) of how we are doing after tornadoes ripped through Central Arkansas. It was nice to see that one person watched the news, saw that a tornado hit Arkansas, remembered that the Presleys are there, and decide to find out if it affected us. Ok, enough wishing people cared and whining about it, but we are just fine.

The tornadoes came Thursday night and we got to see a funnel cloud as it skipped along the landscape just over three miles away. I am guessing we should have been taking cover, but then we couldn't have said that we had seen a tornado. We didn't feel much of the wind associated with it, but we did get a steady dose of lightening that was the most impressive thing ever. The sky stayed lit up for almost a half hour and as the tornado passed, the flashes turned to an eerie bright green. A neighbor took this picture.

As for the effects of the F2 tornado, it snapped a lot of trees in half and leveled a lot of mobile homes. The stories you hear about the ladies in their house coats with their hair up in curlers and a cigarette in their mouth as they describe what the tornado sounded like as it tossed their mobile mansion in the air....ARE ALL TRUE! It wasn't funny what happened to them, but it was humorous listening to the locals as they jockeyed for air time with their neighbors. Each story getting bigger than the last and all ending with "I just couldn't believe it was happening to me." The worst damage seemed to be at the local airport where it damaged thirty some planes and hangars.

Other than the weather being horrible, I got one flight in last week and my prayers were answered because I didn't puke. The flight went very well and the aircraft commander even tried to do some maneuvers to make another guy sick and I was sure it would do me in, but I hung in there just fine. I was scheduled to fly again on Thursday, but the weather didn't cooperate. I am scheduled to fly tomorrow morning (Monday) and the weather is supposed to be great until the evening, then it is supposed to rain again. The whole state is flooded, so besides not being able to fly due to the lightening and bad weather associated with rain, we really don't need more water from the sky. The flights have gone well and I should be switching to night flights during the middle of this upcoming week.

Candi is doing well and continues to work from home. She is also working part time as an interior designer. We are planning on painting and re-carpeting our house when we get back and she is figuring out all the colors and what needs to be painted and what needs to be carpeted...besides the obvious answer of walls and floor. I really don't like making those decisions, so I am very thankful she is doing the leg work with me occasionally saying, "that would look great."