how people come together to help.. plz read this true story that happened to day

[Recarobalt_RLC]

first off i am on the Twin Lakes Fire Department.... (our fire department covers our town and most boardering towns....)

1/7/08
3:55 pm a fire and resque call came in for a car accident in the north west corner of our town... car rolled over in intersection.

on the scene and started extracation shortly after (about 4:05)

while trying to pry open this car (that was tipped on its side) to remove a victom we heard a lot of noise.... air was still and it got really dark, then the winds picked up.

4:14pm we looked over our shoulder to see a large tornado heading in our direction (found out the tornado was traveling about 45 mph) we told the passanger in the car to sit tight as we jumped to the other side of the car using it for shelter and hoping it wouldnt tip over on us. seconds later the tornado lifted off the ground went over the street, directly above our heads and touched back down about 100 feet away and leveled the house nearest to us... i have never heard anything so loud in my entire life, it was like sitting next to a fraight train. we held on to the car to stop from being blown away. someone up above must have been watching over us and keep us fire fighters safe to complete the job, and to save all the people whos lives changed seconds after that...

me and another guy ran to the leveled house to check for people inside, while 2 others stayed back to pull the victom from the car... he was removed and ok.

as we ran to that house another one was knocked down... and another and another... list goes on....

i saw houses leveled, cars thrown, parts of houses shooting through the air like bullets, fences and walls shredded and power lines fall all around us.

i was on duty about 7 hours...

30-35 houses completely leveled
15 or more damage badly
and a few with minor damaged

hundreds with out homes

Thank heaven not one person died... and few were injured

last i checked i think we had almost 200 people in a local school, thanks to the help of some local school bus drivers to transport victoms in masses to the school for inspection and a place to stay, mcdonalds for donating hundreds of burgers to victoms, taco bell for sending food, local pizza shop for donating us fire fighters/resquers with food, red cross, salvation army, silver bells, and so many others for helping us in our efforts in saving everyone today.

i for the first time today actually thought my life could have ended when the tornado went over out heads then i realized that the car accident was here in this spot for a reason and the tornado jumped over us for a reason.... we were able to pull people from recage with in seconds after they got hit. and even though i could have been injured or killed by doing this it was worth it 2 save so many, but inside i new i would be ok.

Recarobalt_RLC added 1 Minutes and 42 Seconds later...

i just got sent home for sleep but will return tomorrow to help the clean up

[BlackBalt]

I have family in Wisconsin, hope they're ok. Haven't heard anything so hopefully they're safe...this brings back some memories to me, I had to get cut out of my car when I was 18 and had a wreck, not fun at all.

[Recarobalt_RLC]

western walworth county, kenosha county and part of racing county were all hit.

that is in souther easter WI, and parts of northeastern il got it pretty bad too. like chicago area

but the worst one was the one htat went through our town, it actually was the one that went through all the counties i just listed, it was on the ground for about an hour!

there was a train that was ripped from the tracks and it had hazardious materials on it... so there are all kinds of haz mat all over the place, we even got gov. agencies out here

[Admin]

Now THAT is a cool story... How many people get to say they did stuff like THAT on a days worth of work..

[dduffy2005]

WTF?! a twister in wisconson in the winter??????? Now I've heard of every thing! It was probably the warm weather. how warm did it get over there? here in MN we were at like low 40's upper 30's. I'm glad to hear that you're ok man!

It's people like you that give me hope for this country. You are a stand up person, keep up the good work!

[Recarobalt_RLC]

thanks everyone, it does mean a lot.

our weather here has been so wacked haha, we have been having the most snow we ever hed and then it got kinda war mthe last few days like 40s then yesterday it was 62 and thats what created these nasty storms. now it is 40-50s tady but is gonna drop below frezing by evening... WTF! haha.

i head back today to help with clean up and salvage, and to help care for the victoms.

[IMADreamer]

I don't know what to say but wow! That's amazing.

The weather in the midwest has been nuts the last few weeks. A week ago today it was 5 degrees for the high here, yesterday it was almost 70. We got severe stroms too but I haven't heard of any major damage yet.

I would have cried. That must have been the most terrifying thing ever, it's great that you were ok.. and that no one died. I've never experienced a tornado up close. But I did live in michigan and we ALWAYS had warnings.

[Chester]

Tht is insane that it just went over the car like that whoever that person in the car was has got some serious religon power hahha jk but cool story and that is badass