Tuesday morning Clare slept in a bit, I woke up at 8:15 and she was still asleep, she was a tired girl after all that traveling. Gail came down and woke up Jeff to let him know that she was heading out to help sift thru the debris at Ruth and Pauline’s houses and that he needed to join Greg at Dale and Jean’s house. Our day was officially started.
After waiting to hear from Greg, who had gone to work earlier in the morning, we finally caught up with each other. It was decided that it would be best if the three of us went to Fortune East for some lunch and then meet Greg over at Dale and Jean’s. So, off we went to Fortune East for some delicious egg rolls, they were so yummy!
Once our bellies were full we headed to Duquesne to check out the damage. The drive thru town was unbelievable; I’ve never seen anything like it. There were power lines down, trees snapped in half, trees had been stripped of their bark, houses were completely destroyed, cars were crumpled and pinned under trees, metal was bent around anything that had been in it’s path, it was a complete mess.
The hospital that everyone has seen on TV. Tommy, one of Jeff's uncles, lived just on the other side of the hospital lost absolutely everything. Tommy and his wife Cindy were safe in the basement during the storm, despite their house being completely blown away.
These are all pictures from our drive.
This picture is of Dale and Jean's house from across the street.
We finally weaved our way around and reached their house, we only had to convince one officer to let us thru so we could get down their street. We parked across the street at the middle school and walked across to their house, the driveway was completely blocked with trees and power lines. Walking up to the house was very surreal, the last time I was there we were having dinner and celebrating a late Christmas. After waiting for a bit Jeff decided that we should go on, it wasn’t a safe place for Clare to be.
Before leaving I took some pictures. These are by far not the worst sights we saw that day, there were plenty of families that have far more damage. Dale and Jean were in the house when the storm hit, they had just finished eating dinner with Mark, Cindy and Jude, they all huddled in the bathroom during the storm, we are blessed that everyone made it out alright.
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