Forget rush'bo for a minute: "On Scene in Indiana and Kentucky: When the Tornadoes Came"

[geckosfeet]

Hate citing tiME, but a decent write up on the unseasonal weather in the midwest.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2108263-1,00.html

Ben's rescuer walks him to flat ground and sits him down. The dog shambles like a newborn foal, then steadies and shakes as if flinging water. Chalky white dust flies from his fur. "You're so smart," Elaine says. "So smart. You hid."

...

As the sun came up like a surreal violet-and-orange ball on Saturday morning, I left my home in Clarksville, Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, and drove up I-65 north toward Henryville 19 miles away. Until Friday, the town of nearly 2,000 was better known as the birthplace of Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now it is the latest name of tornado devastation. There, Indiana State Trooper Ed Schroeder briefs a group of law enforcement officers in front of the Monroe Township Volunteer Fire Department. Cops don't usually show their uncertainty, but F4 twisters don't usually visit Indiana.

...

A teacher goes in and out of a hole in the wall, furtively retrieving items from her classroom. She declines to give her name because she knows she shouldn't be here. Soon, a trooper shoos her away. Her father, unbidden, tells me the real heroes are the elementary and high school principals who cut the students loose at 2:35 p.m., 15 minutes earlier than usual and about 40 minutes before the storm hit. My cousin's wife, Beth, has another take. Everything in Louisville pretty much closed up shop around 1 p.m. — universities included — and she thinks her school waited way too long. She's livid about it.

...

F4 twisters don't happen in Indiana. But the Gulf of Mexico is overheated. The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore, who is on scene, is stunned that this could happen in March — it's the month's worst outbreak ever, he tells me, and adds that it portends a rough twister season.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2108263,00.html#ixzz1oARRw78Y

A moment of silence for the innocent.

on edit: removed unwanted text from subject line