Helpless.

Our little corner of MO has managed to avoid being hit by a tornado once again.  Joplin was not so lucky.  My cousin and her husband and little girl crouched in their bathtub while the house disintegrated around them, but they were fine.  Toby's grandparents were on a visit from Utah, and also rode out the storm in a bathroom.  They did sustain some injuries from falling debris, and were very shaken.  They wasted no time in returning to Utah.  Toby's uncle's house was also flattened.

I'm feeling helpless about all of this.  All I can do is watch the news and feel sick.  We've been told by our church not to start collecting things until we know for sure what is needed most.  The hospitals in the area are desperate for blood donations, but I'm just one click off being a universal donor (O positive instead of O negative).  And I'm not sure they'd let me donate anyway, being more than 39 weeks pregnant and all...I can't even send Toby to help, since I don't know if I could contact him if I went into labor.

On top of all this, the weather has no sense of decency.  Our area has had about five waves of storms pass through since the big one.  Nothing too major has occurred, but it's keeping everyone edgy.  Monday, when we went to Harrison, AR for my last scheduled midwife appointment, we watched a lightning storm that lasted ALL DAY.  I mean, it was literally a huge strike every five minutes.  Last night, strong winds took the roof off a public works building in the town just a few miles east of us.  All we got was a moderate thunderstorm.

I've been sleeping through the night for the last week, until all the storms hit.  Now, I keep waking up and checking the weather obsessively.  We're keeping the hall closet cleaned out in case we have to hustle the kids out of bed to hide in it.  Last night, we had to make them go to bed, because they wanted to just sleep in there...just in case.  We're all more than a little jumpy.