{"id":1135,"date":"2011-06-08T15:49:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T15:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=608"},"modified":"2011-06-08T15:49:31","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T15:49:31","slug":"an-alabama-tornado-destruction-and-maddie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1135","title":{"rendered":"an Alabama tornado, destruction, and Maddie"},"content":{"rendered":"

On our way up I-65 through Alabama last week, we stopped in the small town of Cullman. \u00a0 The tornado that devastated Tuskaloosa, skipped across the state, also touching down in Cullman. \u00a0 I talked to one of the eye witnesses, a woman who lives on the western outskirts of town. \u00a0 She said she heard the tornado sirens and dashed to her front window just in time to see the tornado touch down in a field just across the street. \u00a0 “I knew I should have immediately gotten away from the glass.” she said. \u00a0 “But I was transfixed with the sight. \u00a0 Luckily the tornado didn’t turn left toward us.” \u00a0 The tornado continued west, hopped over the small downtown, and then plowed a path down the eastern half of 3rd St. here. \u00a0 The destruction was absolutely phenomenal. \u00a0 Huge trees were completely uprooted, there was nothing left of homes, cars were dashed about as if they were miniature Hot Wheels… \u00a0 It was dark and we pulled up at one intersection that was all rubble, except for a lone wall of one house that was still standing. \u00a0 Rummaging about a bit, our young son Jonathan found \u00a0two items that \u00a0seemed to be the only things \u00a0that were \u00a0intact in all the debri. \u00a0 A Bible<\/strong> and a small Composition Book<\/strong> with the name “Maddie” on the cover. \u00a0 I leafed through the book, noting Maddie seemed to be a first or second grader who made daily entries, and drawings, in the book. \u00a0 There were entries about playing with friends, going to a birthday party, learning about pumpkins at school, and… a page in the middle stopped me. \u00a0 Maddie had drawn a picture of a tornado. \u00a0 Her entry on that page read: \u00a0 “I’m looking forward to going on the field trip tomorrow. \u00a0 We are going to do a lot of experiments. \u00a0 Of course I already know how to do one experiment. \u00a0 I know how to make a tornado.” \u00a0 As I looked again at the drawing, then looked up at all the devastation, there was this, I don’t know, this erie<\/em> feeling. \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 We learned two people had been killed here. \u00a0 I was hoping one of them wasn’t Maddie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On our way up I-65 through Alabama last week, we stopped in the small town of Cullman. \u00a0 The tornado that devastated Tuskaloosa, skipped across the state, also touching down in Cullman. \u00a0 I talked to one of the eye …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}