Night before last, we were forecast to have rain, maybe a thunderstorm. Woke up around eleven-ish to the sound of thunder and rain. About the time I decided all was well and was trying to get back to sleep, gotta be up at 4:30 ya know, it started to hail. I could hear the little hail stones ticking on the roof. No big deal, we get a little a little hail now and then. Right?

The clicking sounds suddenly became thumping sounds, then the thumping sounds became banging sounds, then the banging became a horrendous cacaphony of dreadful bangs and clangs. It sounded like 50,000 elves with 50,000 hammers were out there banging on everything. We were looking out the door at hailstones from small, to large, and many as big around as half dollars and over an inch thick bouncing off of everything. We have a big cedar tree, I threw on my hat and jacket with the intent to run out there and drive the car under the tree, but wiser people than I kept me from attempting it.

We were all wandering back and forth from front door to back, looking outside, it was a surreal moment. I figured if a tornado might be out there, we were in the hail core, and that put us generally NE of the tornado if there was one. I kept holding my breath and trying to see if I could hear the roar of my worst fear, a fucking tornado. I did not hear one this night… (I have heard the train a couple of times in my life and felt the thunderous roar reverberating through my body. I’m a grown manly man and lived a manly life, and aint skeered of much, but tornados scare the crap out of me)

But one was there. It was just a little too far away for us to hear it. It carved a path maybe a mile long (as far as I know), absolutely destroying some homes, massively damaging others. Three dead at last count here in Benton County Tn.

We have four vehicles. Well, five. Three of which are driven daily. The other two are an old Camaro, and an old 1964 Chevy truck. They run, but need some TLC. Anyway, all of them suffered quite a bit of hail damage, except for my old work truck which was parked right beside that cedar tree I mentioned earlier, it got through the storm with no recognizable damage. Also my youngest sons girlfriend had just bought a car, she hasn’t even titled it yet, and it too has multiple dents. It’s a tough pill to swallow. Yes we are grateful everyone is alive. Yes we are grateful there is still a roof over our heads. But goddammit this is a shit sandwich. I tire of shit sandwiches…

Took our main vehicle to town yesterday morning to get a quote on fixing it. This one is our life support vehicle and the only one of the three daily drivers with full coverage. It’s expensive to insure three vehicles when you have kids driving them, so we were forced to settle for liability and uninsured motorist on the other two. Anyway the estimate to fix the Ford Fusion came to $4, 662. Almost 5 grand. I am waiting to hear from the insurance adjuster to consider my options. Good chance we will be stuck driving around a heavily hail damaged car for a while…

Before I came home from town, I decided to grab a bucket of blackjack (roofing tar). I knew I had to get up on the roof and inspect for damage, I wasn’t going up the ladder without a bucket of blackjack. Which was a good call, I used 3/4 of a bucket covering spots where the shingles were damaged. Yesterday was a long day…

Had we known things might have got this severe weatherwise, I could have put 2 vehicles in the shop, and got another 2 under the protection of the cedar tree. No one was expecting a supercell to form as far as I know. After the storm did its damage here, it continued on to Nashville where it dropped another tornado and did considerable damage there, along with many lives lost.

Yeah, a shit sandwich sucks, but I am truly grateful we dodged a real catastrophe. Hope this finds you all in a good place. Nobody likes a shit sandwich. And No One deserves the wrath of a tornado.