This morning Noah and I up got up at 4:30am to head north to Windsor to prepare breakfast with the Salvation Army EDS team.  We served about 300 servings of eggs, sausage and hash browns to National Guard soldiers, Air Patrol Cadets, Windsor and Greeley police, Windsor Fire and city officials and of course, EDS volunteers and employees.  Once breakfast was served we started to prepare another 300 or so lunches that would be given to a nursing home in Windsor as well as soldiers working in the field.  We worked in the canteen for about 6 hours this morning and then had the opportunity to take a tour of the damaged areas of the city.

Growing up in earthquake country seeing tornado damage is almost hard to fathom.  I have never experienced a tornado and hope I never will.  But the their destruction is so random!  In an earthquake epicenter there is damage everywhere and it’s very obvious.  With tornadoes, it really is hit and miss!  The side of town our command post was located had little to no damage.  Looking around you would never have guessed there was a tornado.  The east side of town was not so fortunate, but at the same, it was not as if everything was demolished or damaged.  There was one neighborhood that every house was practically destroyed, and buildings across the street looked as if they were not even touched!  The Salvation Army employee that took us and another volunteer around said that about 100 damaged homes were able to be repaired, but another 100 or so were condemned.  We saw one house that only had 1 wall of the garage left standing.  Most were missing roofs or had damaged roofs.  It’s an EDS semi-policy not to bring cameras to events, so we took what we could with our cell phones.  I have uploaded the pictures from mine here, and when I get a chance I’ll add the pictures and video Noah took with his phone.  It was not what I expected, but then again I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a great experience and one I will never forget.

One thought I had while touring the city, that’s a bit morbid, is that although the tornado was a horrible act of nature and cost so much damage, it will create the workload and jobs needed to help sustain the slowed construction economy.  So even in the darkest of situations there is always a silver lining.