Today is the two year anniversary of the tornado outbreak. Same as last year it's a dreary, rainy day. We're under a severe thunderstorm watch as I type this.
We made plans a few weeks ago to clean our garage today. In the weeks after the tornado everything anyone found was put in storage containers and boxes. First it went to my brothers house and sat in his garage for three months until we bought our new house. As we moved the stuff here we went through some of it and threw away a lot of stuff. Wet sheetrock sticks better than superglue. Just trust me on that one
Of course the adventure wasn't over because over time mold set in. So, even some of the things we were able to save initially had to be thrown out. I guess sometimes it doesn't matter how quickly you get to things, once they've been rained on like that there's no hope of saving them. The rest of the stuff we recovered has been sitting in our garage since a few months after the tornado. Then, last March we had more stuff make it's way to the garage when the flooring men and painters had to move everything out of the house because of the second tornado. That meant that more stuff made it's way to the garage and less stuff made it's way back into the house.
Brandon asked if it would be too hard on me going through our stuff today. I told him that I was going to be thinking about what happened anyway today, so we might as well clean. Brandon's parents came over and helped us watch Lily and clean.
We were in Athens today before we started working on the garage and we stopped for lunch at Applebees. When we left it was starting to rain lightly outside. For some reason I was taken back two years to that moment when I was running through the neighborhood, with a blanket wrapped around me, and not another soul in sight, feeling helpless and lost. Sometimes two years seems like yesterday.
Our garage is looking a lot better. We have a few trash bags filled up now. We aren't finished, but we're a lot closer.
On a closing note for the second anniversary, sometimes you wonder if life had a soundtrack what would it be. On the afternoon of April 27, 2011 my soundtrack would have been "I Will Praise You in This Storm" by Casting Crowns. The first time I heard that song was a few weeks after the tornado. It still brings tears because the words are so literal to me. Every time I hear it I think of those moments after the tornado when I didn't know what to do. I was lost, but God took my hand and took care of me.
"Though my heart is torn, I will praise you in this storm" - Casting Crowns
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Tornado Survivors Are More Confident????
I had one of those "did I REALLY just read that moments?" I saw an a headline "Tornado Survivors Become More Confident, Study Says". So, naturally I thought "Say WHAT???", and I had to read it. I've attached the link to the story below. Now, to be fair, I haven't read the actual study so I can only comment on the news article. And you know I have a couple of things to say about that.
According to the news article, the study found that people who survive a tornado don't think that a tornado will hurt them in the future and believe they have a better chance of surviving another one. Poor Brandon was next to me when I read that and got the "and just WHO did they interview?" comment. I know tornado survivors, and I've yet to hear anyone say that they feel like they can survive another one. I personally do fear that another one is coming for me. We live in Alabama. Tornadoes, unfortunately, are a part of life here. I pray it never gets bad, but the chance of another one happening isn't zero. Heck, we were hit twice in 10.5 months. My family has been through four of them, and that's just the ones that we know about.
I should point out here that the news article also lists having a flashlight as a way that people planned to protect themselves. I should have just stopped reading right there. If only I had my trusty flashlight with me on April 27, I could have protected myself from the tornado. Yeah, nice try.
I take issue with a lot of things in this article, but I came to the conclusion that this is skewed metrics at its worst. It's a classic example of sampling from a small, non-diverse group and then applying those findings to everyone. According to the article, the subjects for the study were survivors of an April 2006 tornado in Iowa City (where the conductor of the study lived). So first, they only have survivors of one storm, meaning there's no geographic diversity. I'm sure people in the south where tornadoes are more common would have a different opinion. Second, that also means that the study paid no attention to how the rating of the tornado survived might make a difference in how people feel. That made me curious. If it was only one tornado studied and people became so confident that they could survive again, just how bad was the tornado these people survived? I survived an EF5 and I'm terrified on storms. I know other survivors who are terrified also. I looked up the tornado. It was an EF2 and there was believed to have been only one death. One death is one too many. However, I believe the study, if it was meant to be broadly applied to ALL survivors, should have found survivors of different ratings and from different areas of the country and compared how those factors affected the way people think. That would have been a much more insightful study. But, that's just my opinion.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that an EF2 isn't bad. In fact, an EF2 can destroy homes and lives. But for people to read that article and think that survivors of ALL tornadoes feel that way does a huge disservice to the actual survivors. If the people in Iowa City are more confident now, then good for them. However, please don't take a small study and broadly apply it to everyone. And if you read about studies like these please don't blindly accept them. If you want to know the truth, in the first few days after the tornado I thought that I wouldn't be scared of storms anymore. I'd survived the worst; I knew it could be done. I was high on being alive in those first few days. Then a few weeks later the first post-disaster tornado warning was issued for Limestone County at midnight. Was I confident? You tell me. I sat in the bathroom floor of my brother's house with my cat in her pet carrier, a blanket and pillow on top of my head, my daddy talking to me on my cell phone, my husband holding my hand, while I rocked back and forth crying. Surviving didn't make me more confident. It made me realize that any storm has the potential to take my life. That terrifies me. There are still people who don't take warnings seriously - and that terrifies me even more.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/tornado-survivors-optimistic-worst-disaster-study-iowa-city/story?id=18671072#.UWtp50rgaBB
According to the news article, the study found that people who survive a tornado don't think that a tornado will hurt them in the future and believe they have a better chance of surviving another one. Poor Brandon was next to me when I read that and got the "and just WHO did they interview?" comment. I know tornado survivors, and I've yet to hear anyone say that they feel like they can survive another one. I personally do fear that another one is coming for me. We live in Alabama. Tornadoes, unfortunately, are a part of life here. I pray it never gets bad, but the chance of another one happening isn't zero. Heck, we were hit twice in 10.5 months. My family has been through four of them, and that's just the ones that we know about.
I should point out here that the news article also lists having a flashlight as a way that people planned to protect themselves. I should have just stopped reading right there. If only I had my trusty flashlight with me on April 27, I could have protected myself from the tornado. Yeah, nice try.
I take issue with a lot of things in this article, but I came to the conclusion that this is skewed metrics at its worst. It's a classic example of sampling from a small, non-diverse group and then applying those findings to everyone. According to the article, the subjects for the study were survivors of an April 2006 tornado in Iowa City (where the conductor of the study lived). So first, they only have survivors of one storm, meaning there's no geographic diversity. I'm sure people in the south where tornadoes are more common would have a different opinion. Second, that also means that the study paid no attention to how the rating of the tornado survived might make a difference in how people feel. That made me curious. If it was only one tornado studied and people became so confident that they could survive again, just how bad was the tornado these people survived? I survived an EF5 and I'm terrified on storms. I know other survivors who are terrified also. I looked up the tornado. It was an EF2 and there was believed to have been only one death. One death is one too many. However, I believe the study, if it was meant to be broadly applied to ALL survivors, should have found survivors of different ratings and from different areas of the country and compared how those factors affected the way people think. That would have been a much more insightful study. But, that's just my opinion.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that an EF2 isn't bad. In fact, an EF2 can destroy homes and lives. But for people to read that article and think that survivors of ALL tornadoes feel that way does a huge disservice to the actual survivors. If the people in Iowa City are more confident now, then good for them. However, please don't take a small study and broadly apply it to everyone. And if you read about studies like these please don't blindly accept them. If you want to know the truth, in the first few days after the tornado I thought that I wouldn't be scared of storms anymore. I'd survived the worst; I knew it could be done. I was high on being alive in those first few days. Then a few weeks later the first post-disaster tornado warning was issued for Limestone County at midnight. Was I confident? You tell me. I sat in the bathroom floor of my brother's house with my cat in her pet carrier, a blanket and pillow on top of my head, my daddy talking to me on my cell phone, my husband holding my hand, while I rocked back and forth crying. Surviving didn't make me more confident. It made me realize that any storm has the potential to take my life. That terrifies me. There are still people who don't take warnings seriously - and that terrifies me even more.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/tornado-survivors-optimistic-worst-disaster-study-iowa-city/story?id=18671072#.UWtp50rgaBB
Monday, April 8, 2013
And the mystery is solved...
So, after a few years of painful long runs, and limping for days after long races I finally know why it's happening. It wasn't the doctor who figured it out; it was the man who was fitting me for custom shoe inserts. Apparently the reason my left ankle hurts so much and swells the way it does is because my leg and my foot aren't lined up correctly. We don't know if it's a result of being born with club foot or if it's something that just happened over time. I'm leaning more to being born that way since I think I'd be in pain all of the time otherwise.
The man fitting the inserts said he thinks that with the right shoes and the right inserts we can help control what's happening to my ankle when I run. It would be great to be able to run more than 7 or 8 miles and know that I'll still be able to walk normal the next day. I'm optimistic that we can get there.
I hear so many people say that they can't run. In some cases that's true - there is a physical limitation that prevents them from running. Most of the time though the only limitation is the one that we let our brains put on ourselves. We convince ourselves that we can't do something without ever really trying. I know because I used to be that person. I was the perfect case of "I'm not running unless something is chasing me". I never knew how wrong I was. Running is one of the best things I ever did for myself. In the past 7.5 years I've ran 5 half marathons, and numerous 10k's and 5k's. I'll never be the fastest person out there, but I'm proud of what I've done. I have PRs of 1:59:58 in the half marathon, 50:12 in the 10k, and 23:33 in the 5k. And to think I did all of that on this ankle:
If I can do it, anyone can. The only bad runs are the ones you never take.
The man fitting the inserts said he thinks that with the right shoes and the right inserts we can help control what's happening to my ankle when I run. It would be great to be able to run more than 7 or 8 miles and know that I'll still be able to walk normal the next day. I'm optimistic that we can get there.
I hear so many people say that they can't run. In some cases that's true - there is a physical limitation that prevents them from running. Most of the time though the only limitation is the one that we let our brains put on ourselves. We convince ourselves that we can't do something without ever really trying. I know because I used to be that person. I was the perfect case of "I'm not running unless something is chasing me". I never knew how wrong I was. Running is one of the best things I ever did for myself. In the past 7.5 years I've ran 5 half marathons, and numerous 10k's and 5k's. I'll never be the fastest person out there, but I'm proud of what I've done. I have PRs of 1:59:58 in the half marathon, 50:12 in the 10k, and 23:33 in the 5k. And to think I did all of that on this ankle:
If I can do it, anyone can. The only bad runs are the ones you never take.
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