Extreme Makeover

I'm not trying to make a joke of Sunday's terrible storm, but this photo below shows the "Extreme Makeover" vehicle heading toward my brother's farm. Its from a video he shot before he skedaddled to the basement.

And, here's why the phrase "extreme makeover" came to mind: On Sunday afternoon, just a few hours before the tornado struck, Husband and I were attending a graduation party in Evansdale. The honoree was the son of an old friend of mine who was raised on a farm just west of the farm where I grew up (now the home of my brother and his family). Our old friend is a very jolly gal, with a distinctive, infectious laugh. As we were bidding her farewell from the graduation party, she spoke of how busy her life had been lately and she jokingly said, "I'm ready for the "Extreme Makeover" TV crew to come to my house and make it over!" She was referring to her own house near Waterloo, but as it turned out, her childhood home was turned into a gutted, mud-filled shell a couple hours later! Now, that's a totally extreme "Extreme Makeover"......and the kind no one in their right mind would ever wish for!

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The rest of the photos show scenes from my old home neighborhood:

The flattened house in the photo below was a huge, square farmhouse where I used to babysit when I was a teenager. It is 3/4-mile west of my brother's place, and it is probably being engulfed by the tornado in the video scene in the above photo.

This farmstead in the next photo is 1/4-mile from my brother's place. Our grandmother was born and raised here. Its a blessing, really, that most of the old-timers of Grandma's generation aren't around anymore to see the mess left in the storm's wake. This will sound ridiculous, but I actually feel as if I've aged 10 years the past few days, and my home was not even in the storm's path! Especially so, after touring the damaged area on Monday and seeing the scope of the destruction, it almost made me feel sick. However, I don't regret driving around there and taking pictures because most of these ravaged houses and buildings have already been bulldozed into piles to be burned or buried. The clean-up is moving at a rapid pace, and that will be good for morale, keeping everyone's focus on a brighter future.

The rubble in the middle of the photo below was also a house I used to babysit at during my high school years, about 1/2-mile from my brother's farm.

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The house shown below has been abandoned for many years. When I was a kid, an old man named Louie lived there, and, even then, the house looked the same as it does now......unpainted and uncared-for! Louie was rather a hermit, I guess.......his wife and children had left him. My mom would take him cookies once in awhile and sometimes I'd tag along. Anyway, can you believe it!?..........this derelict house was one of the few buildings left standing intact in the neighborhood!! Figure that one out!!

The photos in this post were taken on Monday, the day after the storm. At every damaged farmstead there were crews mobilized to start the clean-up process with chainsaws, skidloaders, endloaders, and loader tractors. My brother told me that groups of people from various places just showed up at his farm all day Monday. As an example, he said there was a father and son from Central City, Iowa, who had seen the storm reports and simply loaded up their skid-loader and headed to Dunkerton to help out. A Red Cross van drove through the area providing food and water.
Here below is the peeled-away roof at my brother's house. They feel so very blessed that their dwelling received only this relatively minor damage. The most violent middle portion of the tornado veered a bit to the northeast, sparing their house from a direct hit.

Ah, yes.......I have many childhood memories of playing on the big rock below, which was in a little pasture lot on our farm. We kept a small herd of sheep there. My sisters and I would play "house" on the rock. (We played "house" in every conceivable spot we could find!) We'd cart dolls and blankets and toy dishes all over the farmstead to furnish our "houses", and we'd take turns being the "mom".

The old ash tree finally met its demise........and, if nothing else, we can at least be confident of one thing:...........Not even an EF-5 tornado can blow this rock away!!