The Vancouver Tornado

Today, the unspeakable happened in the greater Portland area, we had a tornado touch down. The exciting news is that it was here in Vancouver. The state of Washington ranks 47th for frequency of tornado sightings. Apparently the tornado came right down 78th Street, which we live right off of! I (Anne) was eating lunch with Allison, and we began watching the weather do some weird things out our windows. First there was lightning and thunder (which is rare here), and then it began hailing like mad. A few minutes later the winds picked up. Allison and I thought it looked like we were in a carwash by the way the wind, hail and rain was hitting our windows. I had no idea it was a tornado until Adam called (about 10 mins later) and said he heard that one touched down in Vancouver. There is quite a bit of damage, which starts yards away from our house, however our house was untouched. The tornado photo above was taken less than 2 miles from our home. And, the snapped billboard was less than half a mile away!