We are fine. We had some storms on the radar that were SW of us in TX and looking a little scary so we put deer netting over hoops over the tomato and onion beds for hail protection. I don't know how much hail the storms produced, but once when I was checking the radar I saw what looked like a hail core. We could see horrible clouds slightly south of us and could hear thunder on and off for 2 hours, but so far the storms have stated south of the Red River. Our worst weather here, in terms of severity, almost always comes at us from our SW. As I was watching the radar, stopping to check it about every 15 minutes, it looked like we had a tall wall(The Great Wall of Oklahoma?) at the Red River that was making storms just melt away. I'm okay with that! : ) Larry, Thanks. I hope y'all are okay tonight. I got in such a habit of posting these when Diane lived in LeFlore County and the hills around her kept her family's weather radio from receiving the warnings. Now, I just think that it is a good idea to post them in case someone else is outside like I was, and comes inside and sees the Tornado Warning and says "Oh, crap, I didn't know this was happening". Actually my first clue that a watch had been issued was a text message from our county's Emergency Mgmt Director. He's really good about sending us the weather watch and warning news as soon as he gets that info himself. Dr. Forbes has some TorCon numbers posted for our region for later in the week, and I'll be watching those as the most serious weather days approach. Dawn

Our barn and damage were not mentioned on TV. I didn't send in pics or call......did not want the TV coverage! We drove by the house behind us and were amazed by the damage to the house, even the outdoor wood furnace had all the metal housing stripped away. A rafter from their barn was laying on the ground with a light fixture attached and the bulb wasn't broken! We finally got the yard cleaned up and DH is picking up lumber from the pole barn out in the field. We haven't started picking up the roofing because of the strong winds we are having. We got some rain the night after the tornado, but none during it. Strangely though we do have muddy streaks on some outbuilding brought in by the tornado.

spanky.... Lots of good ideas here. I like the idea of pricing my current coverage. Let's see what is it I dislike about our current agent...they have an answering machine and they're not afraid to use it [g]; the last time I left a voicemail, I did not receive a call back; last claim we made, I had to work it out myself with the insurance company, the agent was useless; they gave me the wrong information in a potential claim situation once; and they never review our policies or update us at all or call even once a year to check on us. We end up just renewing because our attention is elsewhere and because we haven't any confidence in the agent anyway. spanky...why does carrying a high liability keep the suit birds away? You don't mean it would discourage suits, you just mean it will cover you if someone sues you, right? I thought that might be the case with flood insurance. I am not in a flood zone. The last time we had serious rain, there were areas in my state that had overflowing riverbanks and towns that were flooded, but none of it effected us in the slightest. What about if you get flooded from an accident of some kind? Like a burst pipe from workmen in the street? Burst pipes in the house are covered, right? We aren't in an earthquake area either, so what if we had a freak earthquake? These days, to my way of thinking, you could get any kind of disturbance anywhere. Could we lose our house? We would still have our land, but we could put up a tent, right? [g] Hurricanes we do get. We are on the East Coast and have lived through many of them. Our house was built in the 1950s and never had damage from one though. When you say 'special hurricane deductible' ...so I would have one deductible for everything else covered by the policy, but a hurricane would be an exception and would be higher, as in a percentage of the total damage the insurance company paid us? I'll have to look into umbrella coverage. Sounds familiar. Very helpful..thank you very much. :-) pm2

stockergal, I agree on the deep mud and the flies. I have to battle my way through swarms of flies every time I'm near the chicken coop or chicken pen. I don't know how our soft mushy ground ever recovers----it is going to be pock-marked with big deep footprints and mower tire ruts. I'm excited about the prospect of eventually having at least the soil surface dry out. We have clay, so it will stay wet, wet, wet, wet, wet forever, and then one day, suddenly it will be dry, and the next day it will begin contracting and cracking. It always happens that way and you go from feeling far too wet to thinking "uh oh, the ground is cracking". The difference, this year, compared to most recent years will be that even after the soil surface cracks, I'll know that there still is great soil moisture down for at least a couple of feet. I do feel for the Texas ranchers. Yesterday on the news they showed cows in the Houston area scrambling to find any little bit of high ground after the San Jacinto River overflowed its banks. There was talk that the ranchers were going to hire a chopper to go in there and lift out the cows. I know that's been done before, but I don't know how they get a cow to cooperate with that helicopter hovering overhead. Maybe they sedate them slightly to keep them calm. While rarely a problem here (sometimes we get 1 or 2 in the river south of Lake Texoma), the folks in Houston will need to remain alert for alligators that have come up into their neighborhoods along with the flood waters. Carol, Thankfully there is a lot of high ground here in southern OK. It is a good thing. The Flood Warning for the Red River continues to advise folks with cattle in the bottom lands to be sure their cattle have been moved to high ground that is at least 10' above the nearest river bank. That's actually an improvement. A while back they were advising 11'. We'll take whatever little progress we can get. With so much water flowing over the spillway at Lake Texoma and with flood gates discharging additional water, the river should start dropping more quickly....or at least that is what we are being led to believe. I am sure that the rain falling last night and this morning isn't helping any, but at least we have a dry week stretching out ahead of us after the rain stops today. Tim and Chris both drove through heavy rain in Texas this morning on their way home from work, but I think we have been incredibly lucky here, as the storm veered more south and east overnight and largely has missed us here. We're just getting light rain, and some places south of us in TX got over 3". They didn't need it any more than we do, but that's the luck of the draw, I guess. I don't even know how we dry out from all of this, but I'm going to enjoy watch it happening. I am sure we are in for an epic battle with fleas, ticks, flies, ants and mosquitoes, but the lakes, rivers and stock tanks all desperately needed a wet year, and we have to appreciate the rainfall in that way, even though it has made gardening a miserable mess this spring. I'd gladly put up with every muddy, mucky, stinky, gross, slimey, icky bit of water, mud and moss-covered soil (our red clay currently is clothed in green) if it means that western and southwestern OK get to have water back in their lakes again and, maybe just maybe, see their watering restrictions dropped altogether or at least dialed back a great deal. The worst thing about it is the deaths due to flooding and other severe weather, and the damaged or destroyed homes that have been undercut by river flooding and lake flooding. My heart goes out to all the people who have been affected in this way. Mother Nature can be so cruel. Dawn