Christmas Day Tornado

Just before 1 p.m. on Christmas day, a tornado bounced down our street and the next street from us, causing damage to numerous homes.  I saw the tornado warning on my computer about 5 minutes in advance, so we got in a closet in the middle of the house.  It came and went quite rapidly; we did not hear the typical sound of a train passing that so many describe.  Fortunately, we had no damage to our home, but there were branches all around the house and a beautiful old crepe myrtle tree was uprooted from our back yard and laid down across our stone patio, and many large branches were broken in the tops of our live oak trees.  Many large trees were snapped or uprooted in the neighborhood (see album), some causing damage to homes.  Fortunately no one in Alexandria was injured.

It amazes me that none of our large trees were damaged, yet this 25 foot tall crepe myrtle was uprooted.

A birdhouse that we had sitting on a potting bench was moved to the ground in front of our side gate which the storm closed.

Later in the afternoon we went to a Christmas dinner with some dear friends, and found a piece of mistletoe on their deck, compliments of the storm.

We feel very fortunate that our home was not damaged.  That's a very special Christmas gift.



Our compliments to the City of Alexandria and all of the work crews who cleared streets, restored power, picked up yard trash and helped so many.  View this video of The Grabber picking up my first pile of branches.

1/1/2013 Letter to the Editor, The TownTalk