Close calls.

Scary weather rolled through St Louis this evening. We had a last minute chance to grab a bite with some friends from out of town, and headed into the city just as the storms were doing the same. We drove down Jefferson towards Washington Ave, noting lots of tree limbs down. We were feeling pretty lucky to have missed the straight line winds and hail that caused it.

As we sat at the restaurant a few blocks away, another storm cell moved over downtown, collapsing an event tent by Busch Stadium. The last report said over 100 people were hurt and sadly one person was killed. I was nervous watching the sky go from grey to black as we drove back home, and I was shocked to see the news on twitter about the fatality. With more reports of circulation and baseball sized hail coming out of the metro-east, I was more than relieved to be driving in the opposite direction. Our friends were driving back north through lots of red and orange on the radar, so I was definitely still anxious.

The sirensternly off when we were about halfway home, but it was nothing but pouring rain as we crossed the Meremac River back into our little burb. Kenny turned to me and said that he thought we were in the clear. He has a meteorologist/storm chaser friend who texts whenever things are bad, and we hadn't gotten any updates after his initial warnings to take cover ( as we were driving home).

We walked into our house five minutes later, and turned on the news just in time to catch the breaking report about a semi truck that had crashed through the median of the highway just after the Meremac River bridge. It had to have happened just minutes after we drove past. Two hours later, traffic was still blocked as they worked to reconstruct the accident, which means there is a good chance there was another fatality.

Needless to say, I am feeling very lucky tonight. I cant stop thinking of those poor people hurt, and worse, outside of the baseball stadium. Our friends made it home safely too, thank goodness.

Be safe, everyone!