I got this photo in a text message from a friend. It’s a photo of his friend’s house, and the family was due to close on it this week.
St. Louis isn’t a stranger to storms; by the time you reach adulthood you’ve memorized tornado drills and are used to seeking shelter in your cellar or basement. Several years ago my boys and I huddled in our basement and watched as a tornado roared defiantly in the distance and threw a full-grown tree into our yard.
The city in which I was born and raised barely missed the worst of it; instead the tornado skimmed north-east and tore apart Lambert International Airport (the Mayor says he hopes to see flights at 100% capacity by midweek, but if you’re flying in or out of St. Louis soon, call their airline, not the airport) and communities just north of downtown St. Louis, namely Bridgeton, pictured above.
We’ve dealt with floods, earthquakes, and every year tornadoes, and our community will deal with this, too. It’s a blessing on Holy Friday that this storm took no lives and only caused a few non-life-threatening injuries. That is the silver lining.