A Massive Tornado Tore into the Northern Colorado

By Bug

The town of Windsor and nearby towns such as Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, etc. hit hard by the tornado Thursday damaging many homes and businesses. Imagine you are Deaf relaxing at home and don’t know that tornado coming toward you because you can’t hear the siren. Is it scary? I have a Deaf friend who slept while the tornado was hitting the town. After she woke up and walked to her front door to get her newspaper. When she opened and noticed her neighbor’s house was not there and her front tree was gone too. People who are deaf would not hear a tornado coming until they could feel the vibration and of course it would be too late then, nor could they listen to the radio or any other source of weather information that requires hearing. I admit that I sometime keep my eyes open for any kind of nasty weather because I know I would never get the alert message right away. We don’t have many tornados because it is very unsual to see this by a mountain range. Unfortunately, not many towns have tornado sirens or think they need them.

I woke up and wondered why my room was so dark in the morning. I looked out of my bedroom window but all I saw was the black sky. I turned my computer on to check the local news. The national weather service in Denver had issued a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch. I sent a warning notice to my Deaf friends and let them know that we are under a tornado warning watch. One of my friends said, ” I’m not worried. I’m used to tornados back home.” I replied teasing Vanessa, ” How nice of me to let you know in case you don’t want to lose your wig.” I think she didn’t realize how bad tornado was. A one hour later Vanessa said ” I keep my eyes on my cats they were acting up due to tornado warning. If it happens. I grab them with me to the bathroom. It’s safe because no windows”.

My past American Sign Language (ASL) student Jessie sent me a wireless email asking if I’m okay. I told her that we are still under the tornado watch. “This weather is insane! There was a tornado in Windsor. Have you heard anything about Fort Collins? We’re in lock down at school”, said Jessie. I told her that I might not be able to use my sidekick to send or recieve the emails because of no power

I was concerned about my friend Tim’s parents because they live in the area where the tornoado hit. I sent my text message asking if his parents were safe. Tim replied, ” My parents are good. My dad made it through but his work building (shop) trashed. Everyone had time to make it to shelter. Hope the company can rebuild. Roof gone. Doors gone,”

Another email came from my friend Cindy. She wrote” Hey, where were you today during the “fun” weather? The tornado touched down north of the Budweiser plant and came towards my school in Wellington. My school lost all of its power. We had the kids in the hallway for almost 2 hours. It was so loud…sounded like a train was on top of the school. We sang to the kids so they wouldn’t hear how bad it was. ”

A several cars were overturned and a train was derailed. The town is littered with wreckage of roofs, beaten cars, and torn up trees. Some homes are halfway torn out. More than 200 poles were brought down by the tornadoes. About 60,000 people were still without power at 4 p.m. It’s terrible and sad for some of these people. The total number of injured is unknown, but I was told that least 100 people were treated for a variety of injuries.

I saw a damaged atm machine next to the bank. Also the bank is destroyed. I was told there were reports of injuries in the area where children at a daycare received minor scratches. Roughly 130 kids were in the daycare and they hid in a bank vault for safety. None of the children were injured, but several cars suffered heavy damage near the building.

Hundreds of people were left homeless today after a tornado ripped through residential streets in. Also, many birds were beside the fallen trees. I think the birds were trying to figure out where they needed to go since their little homes (nests) were gone. It’s like the homeless people tried to figure out like the birds.

The dogs were wandering around. Some of them sat in front of their owners’ destroyed home as they waited for their owners. I walked by their houses and looked for anyone missing. One victim said, ” My house is gone, I lost my dog. I lost my cats. I lost my camper. I lost everything.”

I took many good pictures and will post them soon. The videos you are about to watch contains footage of an incident in which many places were destroyed and damaged. Except one of videos (tornado on T.V.) was not made by me. I want to show you what the tornado did to the town.

If you are looking for information about the welfare of those impacted by the tornadoes, log onto www.redcross.org.

UPDATED: to view my pictures, click: https://fookembug.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/disaster-photos/