Tornado hits Elementary School

Just a few minutes before school got out today, a small tornado hit the parking lot. Picked up and stacked aproximatly eight cars. Only a few people recieved minor injury.

It has been raining off and on all day. Around 2:30 wind picked up and knocked our swing over in the back yard. Around 3:00 we wondered why the bus hasn't been by yet. At 3:15 Cari started calling other parents and tried to reach the school. Then someone called and said there had been a tornado at the school. We left and headed toward the school, picking up another mom on the way. TONS of traffic as two schools were being let out. As we sat in traffic Randy called and asked where we were. He was at home with Meredith.

He said during the afternoon anouncements they had a tornado drill, something about putting a book over your head, and the power went out. Meredith said her class had to sit against a wall with their heads at their knees. Randy told me that when the bus was leaving he saw cars in the parking lot on top of each other and mangled up.

This probably was scariest for the people that were in that parking lot waiting to pick up their children.

All of this happened just two minutes before school let out.

After we got home and found everyone to be ok I went out to take some pictures. I found a back way toward the school and parked a few blocks away to avoid traffic. Here's a few pictures I was able to get. I got there around 4:15pm so a lot of clean up had already started. The Cadillac in the center of this picture was on top of the flipped over car. There were also three news helicopters hovering over the scene. If you don't believe me, I took thier pictures too.


UPDATE: Here's a link to the Greenville News story. They have some great pictures that were taken before I got there and also a few witness accounts from people that were waiting in the line. (photo gallery on the right side of that page)