Tornado Watch

We left Foss Lake in Oklahoma yesterday about 8:30. We were planning to head east on I-40 to Oklahoma City, then head northeast on I-44 through Tulsa and into Missouri through Joplin. We were told by the park ranger before we left that Joplin, Missouri had been hit by a tornado the night before! This was crazy to us because we had contemplated leaving a day early and stayed at Foss Lake an extra day just by chance... our good luck. The town was a disaster zone and the weather was still risky. So we re-routed and headed East towards Arkansas. About 5 hours later we were in Fort Smith, AR and decided to get a hotel rooom and stay the night. As we were watching the news we realized how severe the tornado was in Joplin - "the largest tornado in our country in 60 years." Even the hotel receptionist who helped us said she has several family members in Joplin who she hadn't heard from yet. The risk, as with earthquakes, is a second occurance. We stayed glued to the weather channel and the internet - and it turned out that Fort Smith had a severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning and a flash flood warning, but we were just happy to have shelter. Up until about 9:00pm the weather was muggy and windy, but no rain. Between 9:15 and until well after 11:00 there was a massive storm. Rain, wind, thunder, lightening & the darkest clouds I have ever seen in the distance. The water level right out side our room came close to coming in, people were stopping their cars on the road to take cover, and the rain fell like it was be thrown from buckets in every direction - it was pure insainity! We tried to take photos, but it was hard to capture the adrenaline of it. Now we sit in the room wondering what to do, as the weather station shows tornado warning for all of Missouri (where we are headed), Arkansas (where we are), Oklahoma (where we were) and Kanasas (we don't plan on going there anyway).

Rain falling in sheets

The sky is lightened from the lightening

The ground outside our room, water level quickly rising