Tennessee Tornadoes: The View From Franklin

Franklin was under the gun through a series of very bad thunderstorms, hail storms, and tornadoes from about 4PM until well after midnight on Friday, April 7, 2006.

When all was said and done, some 35 tornadoes had touched down in Middle Tennessee — in virtually every direction surrounding our home.

The closest came within 8 miles of our house.

Worse for us was the hail, the large volume of rain… oh and the lightning.

Here’s out it all went down at our house…

First of all, the skies got grey — yet spots of sunshine keep peeking through.

 

We watched from our bedroom — one eye out the window and the other on the TV.

 

Tenor couldn’t bear to look…

 

Destin kept his eye on the storm…

 

The hail kept hitting the window. And it sounded like bricks as it hit the vinyl siding.

 

Eventually, the dogs just wanted to go outside and play.

Several times — between storms — we let the dogs out to play in the mud puddles. They especially enjoyed hunting for hail stones in the tall grass! (Our dogs get ice as a “treat” so this was quite the luxury to find ice in their playground!)

Despite the fact that the storms on this day began around 4pm and didn’t end until well after midnight, we took a time-out and enjoyed a trip to our local Mexican restaurant. Surprisingly, we were not alone… The place was PACKED! Then we celebrated the fact that we had escaped any serious damage from the storm by enjoying a special little concoction we called a “Tornado Turk” (Wild Turkey 101 and some Diet Coke).

That’s the only kind of Tennessee Twister we experienced on this night.