Sunday, April 26, 2009

Mother Nature Says No to Home Show

The home show was going very well, good attendance, even in this economy. Had some interest in the business. The booth was in good shape. Jess and I took a break to look at the other booths and sample dips and cheese balls.

The show ran until seven last night, so I came home late afternoon to make some tacos. Hubby and Jess came home, we ate supper and were watching the television when Rick Mitchell came on to say that we had some nasty weather heading our way. Hubby got three motorcycle helmets and we went into our laundry room, because it's at the center of the house away from windows. The tornado sirens went off five or six times and we listened to storms hit and then fade away. Finally, they told us we could come out of our hidey holes.

Shortly afterward, they started showing pictures on the television about the tornadoes that had hit north Enid, which is where we live. In fact, the Expo Center, where the home show was being held (two miles east of our house), took a direct hit. Obviously, the home show was cancelled for today. We went over a couple of hours ago to see what was left of our booth, if anything.



This is the main part of the building. Our booth, however, was way down at the other end, near that awning on the right side of this photo.



This was a utility pole out by the street.



This is what we saw when we went in to see if any of our stuff was salvageable. This had been the booth behind ours. One of the back doors had been blown off, so everything in that buiding got tossed around for awhile.



This was taken from where our booth had been. Some of our pamphlets are over there, the blue ones. Oh, and that pink bowl was one of the ones we had candy in on our table.



Jessica had taken the balloons and put them in her car last night, I'm not sure why. We had a couple of boxes of pamphlets and flyers, some candy, a few snacks, a pot of flowers, and our banner. They were all there, still intact. All in all, we got lucky. But our booth doesn't much resemble the photo from the last post.



And that's how we do an Oklahoma home show!

12 Comments:

Anonymous Di said...

Only in OKLAHOMA!!!!!! Gotta love it!

2:40 PM  
Blogger Mom Thumb said...

di - No kidding!!!

3:03 PM  
Anonymous Jess said...

Overall, we (as a community) got pretty lucky. No one was killed, and only one home was destroyed (from what the news said). A few businesses didn't fare too well, but at least no one lived there. Had that tornado touched down two miles west or another mile east, many more homes would have been destroyed, and there's no telling how many people could have gotten severely hurt or killed.

6:02 PM  
Blogger Mom Thumb said...

jess - Yeah, it was a little too close to our own home for comfort, but yes, it could have been much worse.

5:47 AM  
Anonymous Bill said...

Wow! That looks like a dance hall after a Polish wedding. Glad you did not get injured.

4:30 AM  
Blogger Mom Thumb said...

bill - Do you suppose the Hastings Country Club will look like that after Curtis gets done with it?

8:10 AM  
Blogger KiddoKare1 said...

Wow, I need to send Tasha to look at these pictures. She was saying last night that she wanted to see some pictures of the Expo center.

Jess, you are so right! Everyone was very lucky!

11:12 AM  
Blogger Mom Thumb said...

tracy - There were some other photos I would have liked to have gotten (like a big tree totally uprooted) but there were so many people out there trying to recover their things (or just driving by to look) that the traffic was getting kind of dangerous.

8:12 AM  
Blogger Jeff and Charli Lee said...

Holy crap! You guys are living in the danger zone!

So glad you and your house didn't get hit. Whew!

8:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OMG---I am so glad you are all allright!!!

9:00 PM  
Anonymous lois said...

That was me that just said I'm so glad you all are allright!!!

9:02 PM  
Blogger Mom Thumb said...

jeff - Yeah, this time of year is definitely NOT my favorite. The laundry room is better than nothing, but I think we need a storm shelter. You know, so I can kick it and say "Auntie Em, Auntie Em!"

lois - Thanks, me too! It could have been a lot worse.

8:37 AM  

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