Still here.

Well, God was watching out after your's truly last night. The track of the beast as far as the television weather showed was predicted to go directly through our neighborhood. At the last moment it tracked just to the south of us and then took a left turn around my neighborhood and tore the hell out of a neighborhood in Clay about two miles away as the wicked witch flies. (We live between Pinson and Clay in an unincorporated tiny slice of the county that is rumored to be unwanted by both municipalities because I live in it and they just don't want the hassle from me at city council meetings.)

It took us two hours to find a way to Rosey's work in Moody, AL -- Pinson north to Oneonta, east to Ashville, south on I59 to Springville, again east to on AL174 to Odenville, then south to Moody. Check it out on a map. All the direct routes were blocked by downed tress, power lines, debris, etc. I stuck around Rosey's work area to take her out to lunch and try to replace her contacts (she's down to one and I refer to her lovingly as the Cyclops). Afterward (about noon central) I tried to get home and got here about an hour and a half later by probing back ways and reversing course rather more often than not. The way I found took me past the destroyed neighborhood on Deerfoot Parkway where the 16 year old girl was killed. The neighborhood is still swarming with search and rescue volunteers, emergency vehicles, and helicopters floating overhead.

The neighborhood itself used to be shielded from the road by trees. Trees are gone. So, in large measure, is the neighborhood. The carnage is a textbook example of the weaknesses inherent in American cheap frame construction of the "up-scale" variety. It used to be a very nice neighborhood, before nature's version of the 155 howitzer time-on-target barrage got through with it. A cautionary tale for those of us who believe that we can ride out in such structures whatever is coming in this darker century's immediate future.

I'd like to thank all the Irregulars who called me to find out if I was doing okay. Especially Jerry, Eric and the Dogtown Rangers. Cell coverage is a little uncovered right now in this area, so I can only use the phone when I am out of this immediate area.

(Correction: Rosey just called me to see if I made it home and there was power, so I guess the system is coming back on line at least a little bit.)

Other Irregulars are out helping with the recovery, especially the SAR guys from the old 1ACR. May God bless them and keep them, along with all the victims and family members trying to recover from this violent storm.