Newburgh Indiana

I haven't posted anything because I live in the middle of the tornado ravished town of Newburgh, Indiana. It's about the nicest town anyone could live in. I live in the old part of town in a very big very old house - 1830. It's a beautiful town by a dam site. The Ohio River is about a block from my house. Saturday night the siren went off, and we dutifully got up about 2:00 and went down to see what the TV had to say.

It said there was a probably tornado at Ellis Park - the race track. That was pretty close, and we decided to take shelter in the basement. Then nothing. We heard absolutely nothing. Then the lights went out and after standing in the little dark basement, we went upstairs to a little rain. We went out on the front porch and it was simply raining, so we went to bed.

We were stunned the following day when we heard what had happened. Our power was still out, so we couldn't watch TV. My husband went out grocery shopping and came home shocked with what he had seen. He had problems moving around with all the damage, trees down, etc.

We heard from our son in Florida what the world was saying about us. He had heard about the storm from his mother in law in Connecticut. Then Miss Molly arrived with the boys. In no time the house was full, busy and waiting for breakfast. I thought I would go nuts without coffee, but the power came on about 11:00, so I made breakfast for everyone. We were so very lucky.

There is so much destruction in this little town, it's just horrible. There are places we still can't go, and moving around Newburgh for us in the old part means we have to take a highway all the way around town to the river. If that helps, it's not too much trouble.

It was a Phone Sunday, because we heard from people we never hear from. It was endearing. My family heard coast to coast from people I've known for fifty years.

On Sunday, the faculty at the school talked a lot that day about closing school, but we thought it would be better to open for parents who needed us. It took nearly 30 minutes for me to get to school. It ordinarily takes 6 minutes. There were check points everywhere, and I was glad. But that was at 6:15 this morning. By the time Miss Molly and Miss Stacey got to school, the travel time was over an hour.

We made the decision to call school early because the children were in a real "shock zone." They were weepy, confused, behaving strangely, and we thought if the Newburgh kids have to sit in a car and wait to go through checkpoints tonight, they are going to be undone. Every single parent but one appreciated the decision.

The one parent who dissented was so irritated at being "inconvenienced" for two hours abandoned good judgment altogether and said some cruel and unkind things to our teachers about our program and about us. We understand that parents are upset, and we appreciate how difficult it is sometimes, but we make our decisions about the school based on the health and safety of our children. They are the most important part of our day. We also contribute to parent's lives beyond the call of duty as often as I can count, and when we close school, it's not for us, it's for the children and for families.

One of our students was in the tornado and came close to losing his life. One of our student's great grandmothers is in critical condition at the local hospital. We had two guest children today who lost everything. The tension today was like a taught bow string, and no doubt. With the torment of death surrounding you, and the constant pieces of sentences alive in the ears of children who listen to everything, but can't always understand, it is of course going to be a frustrating and scary time.

We did play practice and had a lot of treats today. Tomorrow we will be doing a lot of one on oneing because the kids seem to need it. We did safety awareness with Tornado Turtle. It's close to a yoga move, but a reasonable position in case we have another storm.

We ate donuts on the patio today and tacos and rice and corn and apples and bananas and they ate it all.

Tomorrow it's chicken pot pie!