Good Friday Tornado

Another slow day at the office….it really goes in waves and I actually am glad for things to be a bit calmer around here after the last couple of weeks.  I want to share a bit of info regarding the Easter Weekend storms that affected the St. Louis area and my family specifically. On the night of April 22^nd the area was hit by one of the strongest tornado's on record in since sometime in the 60’s. It was an odd day for sure….I remember sitting in my office during the first round of storms in the afternoon and looking outside at all the streetlights beginning to turn on around 10am. I even thought to take a picture of it because it felt so weird.

 That was obviously a sign of things to come.  All day the weather was very ominous…. Hail and high winds throughout the area. Not really that unusual for this time of the year…but strange none the less.

We had planned to do a cook for Easter this year and instead of the usual ham fixings we were going to smoke a shoulder and a brisket for the first time. That occupied my time at home after work. I loaded Sam in the car and we went to Costco to purchase the goods.  As we were returning to the car to load up all the crap it began to rain on us…so I quickly got situated and we headed home.

 Not too long after that Ali got home and we flipped on the news. Big storms headed toward the area….again not unusual.  They were talking about a tornado in New Melle (about 7 miles south of my parents) and moving NE setting sights on our area. The storm was also spitting out hail the size of baseballs. Great.  The sirens began singing their all-to familiar song and we began to move to lower ground. This I think was the second or third time this year we have had to do this due to weather so we were prepared with flashlights, blankets, the essential jug of milk and some snacks for Sam.  All this was around 7:30pm. I don’t know why but kept running upstairs to listen to the TV and what not and grab the occasional look out the windows. Nothing was really happening around us other than heavy rains and thunder and lightning. On my last trip upstairs I noticed the major storm was churning just to the south of our house and we were in the clear. At about 8 pm we all came back up and put Sam to bed for the night. I remember sitting on the couch watching the news and catching something about a reported tornado at Lambert airport. I immediately called my mom to see if she talked with the multiple family members close by and she was in a state of hysteria.  She had just got off the phone with my brother who was apparently not paying close attention to what was happening and had just hung up the phone to take cover in his single level cinder block house.  I immediately called my brother and was not prepared for what I heard on the other line. He answered within the first ring.  I obviously have known him my entire life and not once have I ever heard the fear and panic that came pouring out of the speaker during that call. He stated that he was back up on his feet looking out the front window; there were fires and power lines popping all around his house. His car that had been parked literally a few feet from the window he was standing in was no longer there.  He could not see anything up the street towards my grandmother’s house and was afraid to go outside due to the power lines. Everyone else’s condition at that point was not known.  To clarify, everyone else being my Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle and Cousin who all live on the same block.  Most of these homes are owned by my Grandma.  I called my mom back and told her Bill was OK and then hung up the phone, grabbed my keys and headed out the door.  

I made it from my house across the Missouri river in record time and got a call from Ali letting me know that it appeared that Billy made it out and everyone that was home was accounted for so I slowed down and took a breath.  After a few detours I made it to the East end of Garfield where you could not go any further. There was what was left of a building blocking the road. Parked my car and grabbed my flashlight and began walking west.  I can only describe what I saw as extremely upsetting. Of course everyone was somewhat in a state of shock.  There were large trees on houses, houses completely gone, windows busted out and strange enough something’s were left completely un disturbed.  As the night went on…family members started showing up and we all stood around taking it all in into the early hours in the morning. I eventually left around 3am and went to get some sleep.  The light of day would reveal the full scale of damage.

Below are some pictures of all the carnage.

As expected….Saturday was a long day. I want to give big time thanks to the guys at American Signs and Electric and Premier Signs Inc (I believe they are both owned by the same guy, Ken Newbern). They donated not only their equipment (cranes and saws) but their time, fuel and sweat to remove the biggest red oak tree I have ever seen  in my life allowing us to get a tarp on my grandma’s house to prevent further water damage. Also big thanks to local business owner Rich and his son along with Denny that helped with landing and cutting the debris.  I would also like to give big thanks to the crews of Premier Restoration Services

It’s going to take some time to get back to anything that closely resembles normal for my Grandma, Aunt & Uncle, Brother and Cousin but no one was hurt and most defiantly could have been a lot worse

Road Dog

A lot of thing have taken place since my last posting….Two sales meetings for work that amounted to over a full week of travel,  long and boring trip into Kansas for a meeting with one of my OEM’s and a devastating tornado that affected multiple members of my family. It’s been a long, long couple of weeks.  

The two sales meetings were typical at best. “Sell more of our stuff”. No matter what the agenda the message is always the same. Don’t get me wrong, these things usually are informative but sometimes they get drawn out for multiple days only to end with the same message. All in all both meetings were fine and I may possibly pick up some additional territory for one of the lines which is never a bad thing. I usually enjoy sales meetings because it means usually two things….traveling with Co-workers (normally I am by myself in some crappy hotel in the middle of nowhere) and above average meals.

WARNING: TANGENT AHEAD 

 If I am lucky, normal road food for me is Applebee’s. I ALWAYS sit at the bar if possible. If it's full I leave and go somewhere else.  Why? It just looks funny taking up a whole table for one person.  People with families always give me strange looks…as if I am some lonely drifter just passing though.  In reality they have hit the nail on the head. I feel more at home with the multiple other salesmen surrounding the bar who also have the fortunate task of prospecting various towns in the Midwest. We are all just really at some horrible eatery for one reason…to sell some widget and propel our income into the next tax bracket.  Every now and then I get to talk with one of the other “Guys” and it’s always funny how these conversation starts up.  Both of us generally gauge each other and snoop around to see what’s going on…really trying to find out if we are competitors or if we can have civilized conversation about how traveling through these barren lands will ever be profitable. I am not one to pound my chest about prior sales achievements and multimillion dollar projects sold to this company or another. I tend to keep that stuff close to the chest but there is a certain demographic that feels totally fine telling you all about their history and the one project that made them a ton of money. Can you guess this Demo? Usually these guys are older than my dad. They almost always don shined penny loafers and sport coat. Also, they must always drive a Cadillac (I have one of these….but you will never will catch me in loafers and a sport coat). It’s not that any of that is a bad thing…it’s just the older guys have a way of doing things that the younger generation has either rejected or not figured out yet.  Usually I can get a life story in the time it takes to devour a Black and Blue burger and a very crappy Cesar salad. I usually like to listen more than talk. Not exactly the model salesman but I have figured out how to make it work for me.

Back to the sales meetings.....I enjoy traveling with my co-workers. We are sort of an odd family where everyone gets along and can talk freely about whatever. Most of us have kids and relate not only on that level but generally have the same outlook on life. Just to give you an idea of what and how we typically operate…. Each guy covers his own nugget of the map and maintains his own profit center. So a normal day or week consists of all five of us moving around trying figure out how to put another dollar in our pocket. There usually is not much if any conversation that you would think happens in a typical office. Most of the time we hardly ever see each other within a given week because everyone maintains their own schedule of travel and whatnot…so any time we get together for a few days is rare and usually is a good time. We usually have a number of good stories to hang on to and this past meeting in Tulsa is no different.  There were a number of things that went right on this trip after months of disappointment and frustration (none of this I will air openly). We had a lot of things to celebrate and did so to the extreme. Personally for me it was a huge outlet to blow off some steam after dealing with the devastation of the recent storms.  I won’t go in to huge detail other than my side still hurts almost two weeks after from an apparent “Flair Chop” to the rib cage.

Look for upcoming posts about a few things….the tornado and all the details involving that nightmare for my brother, grandmother and aunt as well as the postponed Easter cookout.