Part Of The Deal For Living Here

<===This was my home town forty years ago. Those empty lots were filled with homes and businesses just hours before this photo was taken.

Tornadoes. You live with the possibility that you will be touched by one of these storms every year you live in the mid-section of the U.S.

They say your chances of getting a direct hit by a tornado are one in three hundred thousand during any ones lifetime. Well, if you live here in the Mid-West, your chances of getting a near miss, getting a friend or family member injured by one, or just getting some damage is almost a sure thing. This year seems especially bad.



<==== The aftermath in Parkersburg yesterday. Look beyond the car wreckage and you will see where businesses and homes once stood just hours before this photo.

Forty years have passed since I was in one of these monsters and I have been very near several others since. Technology for weather prediction has changed, the world situations, and culture have changed since then, but one thing remains the same.

Tornado's are still as vicious, unpredictable, and deadly as ever.

We were spared here in my city as the damaging storms went just north of here, but Parkersburg, New Hartford, and many of the places in this storms path were devastated. These towns and places are well known to area cyclists from our training routes and mountain biking. I think I can speak for all of the local cycling community in saying that our hearts and prayers are with all those touched by this killer tornado.