Saturday, June 4 was going to be the big matchup baseball game between Ethan and his cousin, Matthew. The game was late in the day, to start at 5pm. I started getting Ethan ready and I remember Trent checking the radar, since they said it was going to rain that day. He said a big scary mass was coming our way. I didn’t really worry about it though. I remember hearing an alert on the tv go off at around 4:25pm and asking if it was a tornado warning. He said it was for severe thunderstorms. T was wondering why I was in such a hurry to get there, when they probably wouldn’t start the game for a bit.
Trent had hs game in LaPorte to go to, so he drove separate to the fields. We left the house at the same time at 4:30pm, Ethan was in my car with me. When we were driving down our street I noticed the gray scary skies that were in the direction that we were headed. I remember wondering why am I driving out there if it is going to storm? But he had already had a game that kept going when it was raining, so thought they may not call it off. We drove down Court St to the fields and noticed it was getting dark and my automatic lights turned on and I saw a street light was on. It was still not raining nor lightning yet., but Court St has a lot of trees and I couldn’t see the sky then. I turned on to South then on to West St, once I got to old hs area I could really see the sky and it how low the clouds were. I saw lightning/thunder and then the wind whipped some rain on my windshield. When we stopped at Joliet St. I could see the parking lot to the fields and noticed people running to the cars and rain whipping around them, it almost looked like a mini dust storm around them! It suddenly started downpouring majorly! Right then I took a right toward the courthouse. I told E we are going home, we are not going out in this and get stuck at the fields. I tried to look back to see if T turned behind me, but I couldn’t see him. It was raining that hard, I immediately had to put the wipers on super high. I know he wasn’t directly behind me. I tried to get to my phone but it was so scary and hard to see I didn’t think it was safe. I have bluetooth in my car and was trying to do the voice command, but it always messes up. Trent then called me once I was at Court & South. I yelled to him that we were heading home. He was breaking and I guess he couldn’t clearly hear me either.
I sped down Court St. Ethan is saying he is scared, I told him to just close your eyes. He softly says, “they already are.” Aww. There were 2 cars in front of me as I got closer to home. Suddenly they are slowing down, it is raining so hard at this point. It is like buckets of water thrown on my windshield. A little pickup truck was in front of me. He swerves around to the right of the car that is in front of him and I think honked his horn. I notice that this car has their right turn signal on!! I was like, “What are you waiting for pull in that driveway!!” Then I realize there is a man walking his dog and they are waiting for him to pass. Waiting for them to cross the driveway and they are like 6 ft away! The car pulls in the driveway and I swerve pass them and book it the rest of the way home. I was really scared that this was a tornado coming and we were going to be hit with a tree or tipped over. I notice the rain is really blowing and it is really windy.
I pull into our driveway and tell E as soon as the car stops hop out and run downstairs to the closet. I leave the garage door open for Trent who I thought was probably a minute behind me. I also left it open for fear that we would lose power, I just really expected it at this point. I head downstairs and look for the flashlight. I knew it was down there from a couple of days ago from another weather scare. I also grab my bag with my phone in it. I recall that my hands were trembling so much at this point. We were in the closet in our downstairs bathroom, this closet leads into our crawl space. We have a window in the bathroom and it was white from the blowing rain! We were home for about 2 minutes before the power went out. The dog was barking alot, which wasn’t helping my stress level. Still not hearing Trent home yet. Ethan is starting to cry wonder where his daddy is. I am trying to listen to outside, I remember thinking am I hearing that freight train? It never was that loud, but once I did hover over E to protect him in fear. Right after that I heard 3 knocks, like I really thought someone knocked on our door upstairs. It was weird, I may have called out that we are ok and downstairs. But, still no sign of Trent! I heard my phone ringing but it was zipped up in my bag and it took awhile for me to get it out, which was due to my shaking hands! I saw it was Trent, so called him back several times but they wouldn’t go through. I looked outside and it looked a little less windy so I went upstairs to see if by chance T was in the garage. Still not there, but I noticed tons and tons of twigs and leaves and branches in the driveway. Then I see bigger branches in the street. I open the front door and notice our flag is bent over big time and there is tree branch drooping down closer than normal to our front porch. Then I finally noticed that Trent was pulling into the driveway.
The first thing T says was “Is there any water in the basement?” I was shocked by that, but I remember shining the flashlight to the floor and didn’t see anything.
our back deck…tons of twigs and leaf clumps
then I didn’t even notice part of the fence got blown down!
blew our pool cover in to the pool, nice
gap on east side of fence that wasn’t there before 
and then a big branch split and landed on the roof of our house!! 
part of tree blocking our street further down 
in front of our house…
Ethan, in his baseball uniform, showing the big branch that wind blew 
Then T went up on the roof to check out damage
pool cover dumped into the pool, along with alot of leaves
just couple of shingles need replaced
this branch is not small, it was about 10” diameter
wires laying in our yard
the wires laying on the ground in our backyard…and below the reason why we will not have power for 4 days…tree limbed is resting on the wires in yard behind us 
end of our street looking into fairgrounds at Court St.
further down Court St more trees blocking the road
I will never forget this storm. The next day we found out they were “straight line winds” that were 110 mph. Over 100 miles per hour!!
I predicted on Sat that we would be without power until Tues. We didn’t get our power restored until Wed around 2pm. Our neighbor, who is retired from Nipsco, said we would be one of the last to be restored. He knew they would working for least hit to most difficult/hardest hit. Our end of town was the worst. Plus our homes are older and our wires are not buried. My parents and T’s parents got their power back on Sunday around 3 or 4pm. My sister, who lives on north end, never even lost power! There was talk that the schools lost power. E’s school was still out until Sunday afternoon. The kids still had school Mon & Tues to finish up the school year.
Ethan and I spent Sat & Sun night with my sister. Mon & Tues were really hot, in 90s here. Poor T had to deal with stuff here with no air. I asked my S to borrow their generator on Sunday, when I knew they had not lost power where she lives. That power saved T sanity I think. He was able to plug in the fridge, his phone and a fan.
Then Mon & Tues night E and I stayed with my parents.
We drove around on Saturday night to check out the rest of our town’s damage. Some streets were still blocked off. 
this is the area where we usually watch the Fourth of July parade…now with less shade areas, boo!
then driving around the fairgrounds, so many trees split. Someone said it was easily 50 trees that ended up getting cut down to their stumps. I want to walk around there and count them. 
we know the family that lives in this house with the tree on top of it…. 
then we came to Court and South St for the biggest reaction ever! Wowsers.
the tree was just shy of hitting the house, some siding damage and the gutters.
There were so many trees down in town, especially the south side. It was amazing seeing all the tree branches at the edge of everyone’s property awaiting pickup. 
T got the limb chainsawed off the house on Sunday morning, surprised me that it got down so quick.
Sunday was such a pretty day.
T took these pics on Sunday driving down Court St.
at Greenwood & Court – block from our house was probably the worst intersection of damage in town.
This car had a tree fall on it, looks like they were on Greenwood.
also on Court St and this tree hit the front of the house and pulled up the sidewalk!
It really freaks me out seeing how bad Court St was and then I realize that was the street we drove home on at the beginning of the storm. We were just 1 minute ahead of it and avoided, barely avoided possibly getting hurt by a falling tree. Trent was driving on Court when tree limbs were falling around him. He was going the wrong way and then into people’s yards to get around the debris. He said limbs were hitting the top of his car. It took him so long to get home due to roads being blocked by trees. He ended up sitting in E’s school lot when it was the worst out to avoid the trees. He took a long way to get back to our house. He didn’t notice the big limb on our house when he got home. He was worried about the gutters being clogged. At that time, when he was out on a ladder it was still lightning and it was freaking me out. My laptop was on and the radar was running still. I screamed at him that we were in purple!! He thought it had past, which it basically had at that point.
Thank you God for watching over my family during this storm. I am so thankful it had a good ending and we got home safely.
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