The last time Ryan was out of town for work, Chicago was hit by a blizzard. Tonight, he is in Huntsville, Alabama and, yep- tornadoes and a multi-city wide blackout. Natural disasters must know when he’s on the move, huh?
In all seriousness, the storms that have ripped through the South today have been devastating and that’s only from what can be seen right now- tomorrow, the severity of the situation will be much more readily apparent. When Ryan called to tell me that his flight landed but the power had gone out at his hotel and a fresh batch of storms were rumored to be on their way, the first thing I did was get on Twitter, Weather.com, Google. The great thing was I was able to find out what was going on, where the storm lines were, what city officials were saying and get that information to Ryan- with no electricity and the Verizon towers being down, they had limited to no access to any information (I will never complain about his second Blackberry again-thank you AT&T).
The bad part about having access to the internet? That I was able to find out what was going on.
I saw videos of the tornadoes, real time reports from people in Huntsville who were without food, power or knowledge if their family members were okay and confirmation that an entire nuclear plant was hit by a tornado and power would not be returning to Northern Alabama for several days. All very scary things.
They say knowledge is power but what do you do when power cannot be derived from that knowledge? I told Ryan what I could so he felt informed and could make safe decisions but I couldn’t click my ruby red slippers to go down and scoop him out of a tornadoes path. Which kind of made me wish I didn’t know the extent of the situation.
In the meantime, I’m definitely sending mad prayers down Alabama way- to the people who have lost homes, family members, power, a sense of security…and for Ryan to make it back to the Windy City safely.
