February 16, 2025
Like most of the South, last night we were hit with an intense thunderstorm, putting us under a Tornado Watch. Our community warning sirens went off. We couldn’t hear what the intercom was saying over the barking of the dogs. Nox was not one of the dogs barking. Our phone alerts went off right after the announcement. We were under a Tornado Watch.
We got pounding rain and 40 mile per hour winds. We did get some lightning, but not as much as I was expecting. I was grateful we didn’t get the one inch hail predicted. I was so glad we have our new roof.
Just after 11:00 pm, the Tornado Watch turned into a Tornado Warning. The radar was showing a possible tornado between Muscle Shoals and Killen. Killen is directly across the Tennessee River from us. The Tornado Warning lasted until midnight.
We picked the empty closet in the dining room as our place to shelter. Now I want a tornado shelter. Last night was scary!
My family in Mississippi came through the storm safely as well.
When we looked out the windows this morning, we could see the barn door had blown open. Please excuse the reflection of the light fixture.
After breakfast, we walked around Blackberry Homestead. We had a lot of small to medium sized branches down. Nothing big came down,
Bruce pulled a cinder block out of the ditch in the back pasture. We are going to see if that will keep the barn door from blowing open.
I hope all your loved ones came through the storm safely.
Blackberry Homestead 
Light fixture reflection? Nice try, Julia. It is obvious you had alien space craft hovering over the barn! Seriously, glad everything was okay. We had heavy rain, but nothing else, but the temperature really dropped.
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I didn’t want to spook anyone by mentioning the alien space craft using the barn as an aircraft hangar.
I was glad to hear you didn’t have any problems other than slippery mud.
Our temperature really dropped as well. Next week is supposed to be cold, with snow.
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We had lightning in the mountains of North Carolina last night, but I was too sleepy to get up and look at it. I’m aware of at least one tornado watch in the last 10 years. It was too unexpected to cause fear.
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I am not sure why your longer comments aren’t showing up properly in notifications. This happens once in a while. I go check pending comments to see if I have missed any comments from friends.
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Scary! I am glad you came through the storm OK, other than small branches down.
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It was scary! One of towns in the Shoals had a F1 tornado go right through the historic downtown. In our neighborhood, people had trees down. We were really lucky.
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Around here if you say your barn door is open, someone else will say “and the horses got out”. Ah, small town humor.
So glad you all are safe with only minor damage to the property. Do you have a basement or cellar? (Are you thinking of digging one?)
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We do not have a basement or cellar, but we are thinking about digging one.
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I’ve seen where someone took a no longer rolling RV, dug a deep trench and pushed it in and pushed dirt mounding over it, leaving only a small access to the door. Bed, cooking (well, they said they had cooking but I would be concerned about carbon monoxide), storage for emergency food and water. Apparently a tornado went right over it, ignoring the mound of dirt!
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I’d be concerned about carbon monoxide as well. It is an interesting idea.
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It should be possible to run an electric line – until the storm takes out the electricity!
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Solar panels wouldn’t make it through the storm either, so solar power wouldn’t work.
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