Tornado Damage

I thought some of you might find it interesting to see what happened to the area I drove through as I was trying to get to safety during the tornado 2 weeks ago.

This is the west side of Military Ave.  When you drive into Baxter Springs on Hwy. 400 you will come to a stop light.  If you turn right or left you will be on Military Ave.  It's the "Main Street" of Baxter.

This is the east side of Military.  This was a group of about 3 small homes.

If you remember from my last post, the tornado sirens began sounding as I pulled into Baxter and just before I got to Military.  Randy told me to go to the Methodist church.  The following picture is taken from the road I turned down to get to the church.

What you are looking at is down 14th street.  On the center-right you will see some brick rubble.  It was a nursing home that fortunately had been empty for some time.  It was completely destroyed.  If you look in the foreground you will see another road going left to right.  That is East Ave.  The church I was trying to get to was to the immediate left of the view above.  Below is a picture of the church.

After I turned here and went past the church.  I turned back to the east in front of the church trying to "get away."  This is that area now:

And this:

After turning down this road (13th street) in front of the church, I turned North on Cleveland.  I drove back to the highway 400 which goes right into town.  The next picture is of the houses I was facing when Randy told me to drive to the Police Department.

Maybe I should say these use to be houses.  To the left, out of the picture, is the home of a friend of ours.  It is also destroyed.  What you are looking at in this picture used to be 4 structures/houses and then the big house on the right.  That house on the right had been being restored for the past several years.  This is the direct path of the tornado.  You can see a few torn up trees just right of center.  There are more homes back there that look just like these in the picture.

As you know, pictures don't ever do justice to damage but at least you can see what I would have been involved in if Randy had told me to go to the Police Department which is in the opposite direction of the tornado path.  According to the reports, the tornado hit two minutes after the sirens sounded.  That means this devastation happened right on my heels.

Praise the Lord for His protection!!!!