I am not dead.

Nor am I injured. I am not homeless. I am not powerless (er, without electricity).

There. I hope that sets your minds at ease.

My friend Gimpy and one of my cousins called me after the Wed. 4/27/11 storms in the U.S. South. Both asked, "Are you okay?" Gimpy said he hadn't seen my presence online for three days and was worried. My cousin wasn't sure how close Chattanooga is to the severely damaged parts of the South. (I wasn't online because I was helping pick up trees.)

We (the school, the neighborhood, even The Noog in general) got off lightly, especially compared to Ringgold, GA, which was flattened. (One of my employees lives there; he phoned to say his house was okay but his mother's and grandmother's houses were gone.) We had some large trees blow down (2.5 cars and a corner of a storage building damaged), including one humongogigantic oak which I need to get a picture of for you guys, since it's so freaking huge. (It's not Redwood size or anything, but the root ball is so ginormous, I plan to have my 6'5", 300+ lb. employee stand next to it for a sense of scale.)

On Wed., we cleared the two campus roads that had trees fall on them (in between tornado warnings, when everyone on campus was sequestered in buildings). On Thu., we cut away at more trees. Fri. was just for branch pick-up. I intend for my crew to attempt to resume the mowing schedule today, but if all that leaves us is Fridays for working on all the other damaged trees, I'm not sure we'll be finished in time for commencement, now just under three weeks away.