Like a lot of people around here, we spent Saturday afternoon in awe of the weather. Typically when North Carolina gets a tornado, it's relatively minor on the scale of things cyclonic and doesn't stay around for long.
Not this time. The Piedmont got the full Oklahoma. We learned new terms like wedge tornado and supercell -- things one really has no great desire to learn of course.
And when you sit in the safest spot of your house and learn that it's not a dagger but a freight train coming your way, it's not a very good feeling.
Most of us were lucky, but not everyone. In Dunn, they're looking for a 2-year-old. In a Raleigh trailer park, three people died. In Sanford, a number of people owe their lives to the manager, who was outside and saw the storm coming and pushed everyone to the back of the store, which was the safest spot.
It hit the neighborhood where Washington Wizard John Wall used to live. We pass by there on a daily basis and found oursevles wondering if the No-Hand King is okay, if his house, like so many others, is gone.
Anyone who gets through a day like Saturday is naturally grateful, but as soon as that feeling passes you start thinking about everyone who didn't, about the wrecked houses and lost lives. It's been a terrible day for so many people in the Old North State.