On 05/08/2009 An inland hurricane ripped through my hometown of Carterville,Illinois. We were completely devastated. I have never seen anything like this in Illinois.Ever! I did go through Hurricane Charlie a few years back when i lived in Port Charlotte,Florida and i never wanted to go throught something like this again. That is why i moved back home to Illinois. I thought i got away from it. I guess not. The weather has gotton terrible over the years everywhere. It is kinda scary.

My community of Carterville is such a small town with so many historic trees this inland hurricane that they called it destroyed a lot of the 100 year old trees. It was so crazy! I have downloaded some of the pictures for all of you to see what this storm has done to the community. There was no electricity for a week and not many resources were available here in Carterville,Illinoiis because it was so hard for emergency teams to come in due to how much damage and trees there were on the ground. It took a couple of days to clean the streets out so people could get in and out. I felt like we were stuck and couldn't get anywhere. Those days were awful. We lost all the food we had just bought the day before in the refrigerator which totaled out to be $397.00. worth. With the economy as bad as it has been it has taken a financial toll on my family. I am currently not working because of kidney problems all the time and my Fiance' Troy is the one holding it all down right now. I love him for that. But this hurricane didn't help us out much because the money we had saved up for rent this month went on surviving for a week.Including having to buy more food.

Well all i can say is that we all take life for granted and i know i do it all the time. That day was a wake up call for me. Now that i have gone through two devastation's it makes me appreciate things a little more than i used to.