The kids and I headed out to Titusville to eat at Burger King, and then I was going to drop them off at Target while I went to a meeting at the church. I didn't feel up to driving back, so Stacey and Greg drove all the way to drop me off at the meeting and they were going back to Target. I was reluctant to have them go because there was a very bad thunderstorm in the distance. We had been having a lot of severe weather every day. Stacey insisted they would be fine. I said, "Call Dad and see what the Doppler looks like now. If it is bad up there then just go somewhere else or go home." He had the air conditioning man still at the house, so he told them he'd call them back soon. The A/c guy was almost done. So I went in my meeting at 5:50, but told them to call my cell and tell me what they decided either way. They apparently waited around in Port St. John for close to ten minutes. Too long. I didn't know. A massive amount of rain was falling off the roof and they hadn't called. At 6:05 after the singing started, I had a lot of anxiety and thought "Why in the heck did I let them go? Stacey doesn't have experience driving in anything like this. I should have stayed with them." I was doubly concerned because on the way to the meeting we encountered a police car with its lights on coming toward us. We needed to get off the road, so Stacey. at full speed, pulled off the road and then proceeded to slow down. Whoa whoa whoa! I said, "Stacey when you pull off the road, slow down and then pull off." Back to the meeting: While I was singing I just thought, "God they're in your hands" and felt a peace. I didn't know at that time they had just come through or under the tornado. At 6:10 Greg left a calm message. "Mom we just went through some bad weather but we're fine and we're almost home." They picked me up at 7:30 and the lightning was still pretty bad. Then I heard the story. We drove to the tree on Grissom and I couldn't believe they got through that weather. The tree was inches from the road! Mostly pine needles and twigs were thick on the road but in a perfect line across the road in about a 50 foot wide path. You could see the storm crossed straight across the road, and there was nothing on any other part of the road. That is the point where they were as it crossed, and they told me how the stuff was hitting the car all around. Stacey & Greg saw the tree falling. The picture on the news doesn't do it justice as to the height. They pulled in a yard and they saw that the wind wasn't as bad ahead so they decided to drive to get out of it. By the time they got a block away the wind died down and heavy rain was all there was. They called Tom, then me. So, when they picked me up and I heard all this, I cried of course, because I realized what a close call it was. I was in the back seat hugging Greg and he kept saying "Ow, stop, you're hurting me." We starting driving around to see the other damage and as we wound our way through the streets it was clear that the only trees uprooted or broken were in a straight path. The same path of debris crossed each road with the same width, like someone raked some pine needles and dumped it there. I wished we snapped more pictures of the trees down, but we were just in awe. All basketball hoops were down and a lot of fences, a tree on almost each block. No damage to any houses. People were already out with chain saws, piling things up. An empty lot (behind the street where the tree almost fell on them) had another tree completely uprooted, and the block the other direction had a tree down also. Every street had a mess in a small area and not a flower pot out of place two houses down. The length of the damage was longer than Greg's map. It started west of I-95 with a tree down there and went all the way past the railroad tracks. I saw Greg's map although we're not allowed to read each other's story until we are all done. We rode much further than he shows. The weather man said the Doppler showed a rotation in Port St. John at the time, but no tornado was spotted or confirmed, but the kids said everything was swirling around them and we saw that some of the trees were twisted. Looks like a small tornado to me. I don't think a microburst goes in a long path like that. The sent the e-mail with the picture to CBS news along with their shortened story. CBS sent an e-mail right back saying they were going to put in on the 11:00 news. We taped it. The next day my sister-in-law saw it on the morning news. She heard Stacey's name and ran to the TV to see what it was. The sermon at church the day before was about not complaining even through the big stuff because it can always be worse. I needed it but of course didn't like it. I've asked God "Why did you not deliver us all these years like I prayed over and over?" On Monday, He answered me that He delivers us every single day and I don't see it. He let me see it that day. Thank You God for keeping the joys of my life safe every day!

This was one of the most terrifying things I have ever been through.

It was Monday evening, and Greg and I were planning to go to Target. We dropped Mom off first. Seeing the dark skies to the north, we called to to inquire about the weather. He said that there was much lightning in Titusville. Greg and I lingered on side streets, trying to decide whether or not we should head to Target. After a few minutes Dad called back and said, "Stay put. There is now a severe thunderstorm warning." Thinking he understood that we were in Port St. John, we turned to go home.

Right as he called, the rain picked up. We turned on to Grissom Rd. The rain began coming down in sheets. We passed through a block which was prepped for construction with orange cones lining the street. Right after the construction, we suddenly hit the wind. It became difficult to control the car. Medium-sized branches were flying around us, and pine cones were hitting the car. The debris seemed to be generally making circular motions and we could sense that we were in the center of something. The rain was no longer pelting the windshield, but flying with the debris. The wind seemed confused, and it was all very loud.

Greg exclaimed calmly, "We are in a tornado." We wondered what to do and for the moment decided to keep going. Things raced through my mind. "Will the car get picked up by the wind? Should we get out and lie in a ditch? No one ever says to keep driving through a tornado, but it seems more dangerous to get into a ditch!" Just then we looked to our right and beheld a tree, falling towards us. It was not merely bending, because it was already at a 45 degree angle to the ground. We were unable to tell either how tall it was or how far it would land. Instinct and adrenaline took over, and I floored the gas. (An hour later, we toured the damage and found that this tree had landed within inches of the road. Had it broken off a foot further down on its trunk, it would have fallen right where we were. In that case, my speeding up would have gotten us just barely out of its reach.)

So shaken up by the tree, we decided to pull off the road. I started to pull off next to another pine tree until Greg pointed it out. Instead, I pulled into someone's driveway. The wind was still so bad that my first instinct was to run up to their house and pound on the door for them to let us in. We noticed that it looked clearer only a few houses down. I asked Greg, "Should we outrun it?" and he said, "Yes!" There was a distinct and sudden end to the wind. As soon as we got out, the rain was back to coming down in sheets.

When we got to the light, Greg called Dad and told him that we had just been through a tornado, but that we were okay. Then he called Mom and left a message on her phone that we had been through "some bad weather," but we were okay. On the way home, my foot was shaking so badly that I could hardly keep it on the pedal!

On Fay Blvd., branches were down all over. One large oak was split in half, and several basket ball hoops had fallen over on cars. We parked the car in driveway, ran inside, and proceeded to tell our story to Dad fifteen times over.

An hour later, when we picked Mom up, we toured the spot where we had been and the surrounding streets. We could definitely see a path, a narrow swath where trees were down and twisted, and fences had fallen over. For many blocks, the damage intersected every street, like this:

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We suspect that this was a tornado that we drove through. It would be an F0 according to the Fujita scale, although maybe not according to the new scale.

Fujita Scale

Enhanced Fujita Scale

This is the area we drove through. The last two pictures are the tree that almost fell on us.

It was sometime in the afternoon on Monday June 23rd when I sprung a surprise visit from an AC guy on the family. Carrie, Stacey, and Greg (not being too happy about that...) chose to not be here when he came and decided they were going to go to Target (Carrie also had a 6:00 meeting at church). I'm not exactly sure what time in the afternoon it was, I think about 5.45 when Stacey and Greg called and asked for me to look at the Doppler and see how the storms looked in the Titusville area, and did it look safe to go down Grissom road. This led me to believe they were in fact at Target wanting to drive home. I instructed them to stay put saying that the storm cell really looked pretty bad over State Road 50 and I-95. Minutes later at the house I was standing somewhere near the Island in the Family room when a huge flash of light and large boom happened simultaneously causing me to duck and crouch down. I'm telling you it sounded as if one of those large fireworks from the 4th exploded just outside the window! I thought for sure that a tree must have been struck in either the lot next door or behind us. (Was I ever glad we cut the others down) I figured that maybe we would end up with a brush fire the next day when things began to dry back out. Ten or fifteen minutes passed buy and I got this frantic phone call from Greg stating that they (Stacey and him) just drove through a tornado. I said WHAT!!!!!!! Then they proceeded to tell me that a tree almost fell on the car when they were driving toward home on Grissom. I was thankful that they were OK but worried what else was out there that they might get into before getting home. They said it was clearing and it didn't look dangerous any more so that eased my mind a little. They got home a couple minutes later and I figured they would pull in the Garage where it was dry but they (especially Stacey were so frantic and shaking that they just parked in the driveway and ran through the door. Stacey was shaking like a leaf (by the way where did that saying come from) so i just hugged her till she calmed a little and they began telling the tale of their horrible, scary experience. A tree snapping off right in front of you and not being able to tell if it was tall enough to reach in the road and crunch you in the car WOW! I in all my 37 years of driving haven't had to go through such a thing. I told Stacey that she is now our dedicated "Severe Weather Driver". She said it definitely has released her from the huge fear that she has had for tornados. It reminded me that God still is in the business of protecting us and one guy from our small group even said what they didn't see were the angels holding the tree long enough for them to pass. How many unseen things does God with His angels protect us from each day? I know their protection was directly related to Caries daily petitions to God for their safety and he surely answered this day! The news people never did call it a tornado but based on the width and length of the path of destruction I don't see how it could have been anything else. The way limbs were ripped off trees in a obvious twisting motion makes me think it was not one of those Micro Bursts. This was an experience that Greg and Stacey will share for their lifetimes and a story I'm sure their kids and spouses will get tired of some day. (:

Hey everyone!

Me and Stacey had an encounter with some really bad weather On Monday, June 23. Stacey was driving us to Target in Titusville but the weather was looking iffy. So we called dad who was at home and asked him to look at the weather in Titusville. He said that it didn't look very good and to "stay put". We were in Port St. John when we called him and it was raining hard so we decided to head home. (red line on picture below) We were heading south on Grissom for about a half mile or so and all of a sudden it got extremly windy and tree branches were flying all over and pinecones were hitting the car. As we were driving past we saw a pine tree falling right next to our car. Stacey started speeding up to make sure it did not hit us. But I told her to slow down because we couldn't see where we were going. We pulled off the road (under another big pine tree until I told Stacey to get out from under it. We ended up in someones driveway. We were kinda on the edge of the wind now. We finally decided to just outrun whatever it was. We spun our tires in someones yard (at the edge of the road) and then went about a half block or so, and the wind there was not near as bad. It was just raining hard.

Here is a map of where we drove.

RED LINE = path we took

GREEN AREA = area that we drove through later on that had wind damage

We finally got home. This all happened in about 3mins. on a busy road. On our way home we saw more trees down. Later on the whole family drove around to see the damage. We didn't have any at our house but lot's of other people had trees down everywhere.After driving through we are 99% sure that it was a F0 tornado (if not a tornado definitely a micro burst) Probably if we didn't stop we may have driven right through it. Dad said that he thought we were in Titusville when we called. He meant stay put in Titusville, because Port St. John was bad. We are very lucky!

Stacey sent a picture she took after the storm of the tree that fell near us to the news and they put it on the 11:00 news! We are going to post a video of the news for yall to see.

Greg