I don't know If any of You have been following the story on WAVY 10 about the tornado outbreak in NC but two of the EF2s originated in My home county of Chowan. One went by me the other night only a mile away. I was racing to finish plowing the last field on farm before the rain hit. Didn't make it. I was middle way down a long cut when a lightning bolt struck a tree on the other side of me from the cloud so I knew I was in the bad zone and made up my mind to leave when I made it back to the other end. When I got to the other end, I was wrapping up a set of fertilizer floater tracks through a bad bottom on the way back to the road bridge to get the heck out of their when it hit. A second or two before it hit, My ears started popping so I knew then something was bad wrong. I had to only go 100 more yards to get out of the field. I was going 5.5 MPH and went from dust flying to spinning my butt off before I could get out of the field. It rained so hard that I could not see anything only going 5.5 with wipers on full blast. Got hit by some hail too. Got on the road and could see the yellow line so I opened that tractor up wide open to get to the shop. When I got to the shop, the wind and rain laid down some. The lightning struck several trees around me on the way in. About a mile away though, I could see a lightning Bolt strobe light show like I have never seen before. The clouds were really low and I have seen strobe light lightning flash shows from cloud to cloud lightning in a bad electrical storm, But this was actual bolts of lightning coming down and hitting stuff like a strobe light. I have never seen anything like it. I got My but in my truck and got the heck out of their. Once I got home, A friend that is a fireman called me about a farming neighbor of mine who's property was hit by a bad tornado. Then the guy that owns property across the street from him called me to tell me His place looks like Joplin Missouri. So i took off to see If there was anything I could do to help. His Nephew was the only one there when I got there.

These are the Pics of the House where the Baby was that got hurt and is now at CHKD in an induced comma.



They will bring the 11 month old boy Gavin out of the Comma after the 48 hour period is up and will check brain function for brain damage as he coded 2 times on the way to the hospital. His color is good and doctors think He will be OK. But they want to make sure.

The Mom and Her 10 year old Niece are fine with a few cuts, bumps and bruises. The Niece climbed out of the back window of the house and ran for help next door the My farmer Neighbor who owns both homes and all the property there. He came over shining his truck lights on the house. Heard them in the house. They were trying to get out of a hole in the crushed down house but were obstructed by a piece of the roof of the porch. Ricky tried to lift the roof but it was too big. Luckily about that time a car load of guys came by and saw what was going on and jumped out to help. They lifted the roof off and got the Baby out first and then the Mom and Ricky rushed them to the hospital where they Stabilized Gavin and then flew him to CHKD. If it had not been for those fellas stopping, that baby would have died. The boy's Mom probably would have too. They were in the front part of the house that is crushed down. This house was lifted and moved a whole house length off its foundation. There was a 3 foot diameter pine tree snapped off 10 feet up like a match stick.

National weather service stopped by to evaluate the damage and they gave it EF2 strength. Just down the road from there, the road was blocked and the damage was just as bad if not worse. But no body died yet from any of this. Lots of homes destroyed. I know several people personally that had major damage. also Bethel fishing center area on the Yeopim river got wiped out so I heard. They won't let folks in and someone got flown out Friday Night from down there. Heard another Guy I know got hurt yesterday cutting a tree. He got a chain saw stuck in a suspended tree. He walked down the trunk with an ax to cut the saw loose. Was warned by a friend to not do that that it looked too dangerous. He took one whack, the tree snapped and the part he was on stood back up and catapulted him about 70 feet in the air. He landed on his back and had to get flown from the site to Pitt Memorial hospital in Greenville. I know there were 4 tornadoes down in the Greenville area, a possible EF3 in the Washington Chockowinity area which are about an hours drive south of me. Then the 2 we had, the other being in the Macedonia area which I have heard damage reports but have not seen yet. Too busy at the home end of things.

I don't know anything else on the Baby right now. WAVY 10 and Fox 43 were there 2 times yesterday at Ricky's place. National weather service was too. There is a lot more that the media has not seen at the ground level around here yet. They won't let the public in right now. It is too bad. They have been following Gavin's story good though and were able to find the guys that stopped and helped out. They never told who they were. they got the baby and mom in a truck and Ricky took off to the hospital with them. he never got to thank them. The media put the word out and one of the boys showed up yesterday. They went to CHKD to check on the Mom and Baby. That was a heck of a story.

I have been there at the property trying to figure out if there is something that i can do to help Ricky with his farming as he has a lot of damaged equipment. All his harvest equipment was either damaged or destroyed. He has old equipment that the value has dropped but got the job done so replacing is not so easy when everything over the years has just gotten bigger and more expensive. We have helped each other over the years with loaning each other equipment, help harvest and other things. He has also had other farmers offer help already. He will get his crops planted and harvested this year. That is already a done deal. He just has to head up the clean up, deal with insurance, and try to slowly replace his lost equipment. Here is some pics of his loss and this was directly behind the house that got wiped out.







That was and equipment shelter. The white dump truck in the second pic got moved 10 feet. It was completely under the shelter. Now it has the roof laying on it. and sticking out from where it was. There is now a hole in the woods behind this place. This was a heck of a storm. It could have been a lot worse though.CF