We submitted our story to the Washington Historical society website with video.. Below is what I wrote with my daughter proof reading and adding her own info. The Night of November 16th, 2013: I received a call from a person I had gotten to know in southern IL about a male Yorkie they knew was needing rescued. I had been searching for a male for a while. He was 14 months old and came from a breeder who had rarely let him out of cage. I was warned he had little human contact and very skittish. I told them yes I wanted the baby, despite knowing neglect, and that we would drive the 4 hours to get him the next day, Sunday, November 17th. After that I contacted my two older children who were with their father, my ex-husband. My ex lives just blocks from me. I asked my two older children, age 15 and age 14, and asked if they wanted to go with to see the dog but they said since we were leaving so early they wanted to sleep in and would see him once we brought him home. They knew I would not turn away a dog in need. November 17th, 2013: We woke early that morning to prepare for our 4 hour trip to southern, IL. My husband and youngest, age 7, were with me and we were excited to be bringing home our new baby. We decided to take our female Yorkie with us on the trip and left our two border collies at home. When we walked out of the house it felt beautiful. It was a perfect day to bring a new dog into our home. The Drive: The drive was rather boring so I was staring out the window just letting my mind wonder over this and that. Occasionally I tried to entertain our 7 year old daughter who was full of excitement as well as boredom with the drive. Around 11 am or so I was staring at the sky watching these few wisps of clouds swirl here and there at a lower level within this pretty blue sky. We were about an hour to 45 mins away from reaching our destination. Very soon this weird fear came over me. I pictured a tornado! I started searching for places on a highway we could go if a tornado hit. We were in a car! Most unsafe place to be! There were no houses, no shelter…. nothing. I had no reason to have this fear at all! No signs of anything like a tornado had even been mentioned or hinted to me. I finally calmed myself down thinking I was having the stupidest thoughts. I was going to mention to my husband, my weird fear, but then figured he would just laugh at me. So we drove on in silence with the radio playing. About 20 minutes later my husband gets a text from my step-daughter. It just says. “Did you survive?” My husband and I go what does that mean and laugh. We text back jokingly going, “Sure we are surviving fine.” She then calls and we learn Washington has been hit by a tornado!! Where Are My Children? When the call from my step daughter came in, who lives in Peoria Heights and has family of her own, I was a bit in disbelief. I laughed at first a little going ok a small tornado hit. Then more calls started coming from friends telling us devastation they could see. I started shaking so bad I could barely grab my phone. Where were my teenage children? I tried my teen daughter’s phone, who was 15. I called over and over and no answer! I then tried my son’s phone who was 14 and the second call got through. I screamed “Are you guys OK,” Into phone? My son who is not an emotional child says, “Yes. We are ok but we got some cool pics of the tornado. But there is a lot of damage.” I asked him if we all had homes left and he said he did not know yet. As I was asking questions his phone hung up on me. I would later learn the truth. I was shaking too bad to ask for details and just wanted to know they were alive and safe. We were 20 minutes from picking up the dog so we decided to just hit the gas, go fast, grab dog, and rush home. When we got to the dog we glanced at him and said yep. Put him in car and hit the gas to get home. Eventually my step daughter was able to check that our home was fine as well as my other two dogs. But she said across the highway about a half mile was another story. The Drive Home: Guilt… the 4 hour drive brought us huge guilt. We were not there to help. We were all OK. But we kept saying how could this happen? On the drive home we came across several tornadoes we had just missed. Overturned semi’s, farm tractors, and fields destroyed. These were nothing compared to what we would see when got to our beloved home town over the upcoming days and year! How did we just barely miss all these tornados? It was the longest drive of our lives to get back. To top it off our poor new Yorkie apparently was not only skittish as crap but got car sick… 5 times! I was covered in dog puke! As we got close to home we had to maneuver through back roads to get to our house and seeing destroyed farms and emergency vehicles all over RT 24 in the distance that we would usually drive to get home. Our street was pitch black. We luckily have a camper at our home that my husband immediately hooked up to our generator so we could live while power was out. We got settled in and I was able to get Verizon hot spot hooked up so I could see the internet and see the devastation surrounding us. We provided some neighbors with power for phones and helped them connect as well with the new world that had now changed for our home town. Once settled in I found my children were in Morton at their grandmothers and had time to actually talk to them on the phone. That is when I learned the truth. My Children during Tornado: Finally…. I got to talk to my 15 year old daughter. I asked her where she was during tornado. She said, “In the car. We had to outrun it.” I laughed thinking she was kidding and said, “Seriously were you at your dad’s? You would have been able to see it very clearly since his house is backed right up to 24 and it went right across the subdivision on other side.” Her answer, “MOM, we were in the car when it hit Georgetown apartments coming home from McDonald’s. I have video. We stopped in carwash across the street then ran for our lives.” When we hung up she sent me 2 videos. I started to freak again then realized something…. That was my intense fear while in car of driving and looking for a safe place for no reason. The timing was eerie on when I felt that and the connection to time they WERE running for their lives in a car!! When my daughter sent the video’s to my phone it all clicked and I started shaking again! I had had a true mother’s connection to my children. God or something was trying to tell me my children were in trouble and I was feeling what they were going through. I had no reason at all to have had those visions when I did, at the exact times I did, other than what my children were going through. Aftermath: The guilt still stood for a while. We volunteered everywhere. We saw lives destroyed, BUT we also saw love and laughter. We saw miracles while helping friends and strangers finding cherished things in rubble that we never thought would be found, but were. We saw love of so many near and far in neighbors, citizens, and strangers from all over! We will never leave Washington. Our town is actually blessed with pure love and I see that lasting for a million lifetimes now! On a finishing note…. We named the dog we rescued, on 11/17/13, Washington “Storm”.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 05:05:27 +0000
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