A reminder of God's power and mercy

I was in Austin, Minnesota last night for the Cedar River Watershed District meeting. These monthly meetings are held at the Hormel Nature Center. Well, this location happened to be in the path of last night's tornado that hit Austin. http://www.albertleatribune.com/news/2009/jun/17/tornado-touches-down-corning-austin/

We heard the sirens and then the news came that a twister was hitting the NW side of Austin and heading our way. We watched the clouds begin to rotate and the debris starting picking up. Small "fingers" of twisters snuck out of the side of the massive cloud and then we could see the large rotating cloud heading our way.

Our group of about 15 went to the bathrooms and utility rooms as there was no basement. The men's room has a small window that we could see out. All I could see was trees being flattened or completely sideways. The interpretive center is about 20 feet away and we lost site of it when all we could see was downed trees and roots sticking out of the ground. We were waiting for the "train sound" that everyone describes when a tornado hits. Lucky for us, we never heard that sound.

Outside, the photo below is what we saw. These were the trees that we could see out of the bathroom window.

The roof of the interpretive center was torn-off as shown below.

The photo at the very top shows the path of the destruction after it hit the interpretive center, only 20 feet from our bathroom shelter. We then started to get the terrible news about other parts of town and homes that had been hit. After the chainsaws arrived, I was thankful to be heading back home to my family. Last night, I certainly said extra prayers of thanks.

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