Deadly Tornadoes Strike Texas, La., Miss.

[emad]

Guardian
By PAM EASTON

Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON (AP) - About a dozen tornadoes plowed across Texas, killing one person and destroying several homes, part of a storm system that drenched the state for four days, pushing rivers out of their banks and forcing people out of their homes.

As the line of violent weather swept eastward after raking Texas on Tuesday, tornadoes also struck parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, killing two more people. Scattered damage was reported in Alabama.

The weather was clearing Wednesday in Texas, but rivers were still swelling with rainfall that included 15 inches in one day during the weekend in southeastern Texas.

In Texas' Dewitt County, officials called for the evacuation of about 100 homes near the Guadalupe River, expected to crest Thursday or Friday, said Sheriff Gary Edwards.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4635181,00.html

[Not_Giving_Up]

1. Yep, we had some NASTY weather last night

It hit us around 10:00...Now it's actually fall weather outside - just in time for turkey day!

[lastliberalintexas]

2. Where are you, NGU?

I'm in Hardin county, and we had several touch down last night. The wind and rain was awful, and we only got our power back around 6 this morning. I can't complain, though, since we're all safe and sound!

And yes, now it's just gorgeous! Typical SE Texas weather- 80 one day, and 58 the next. :hi:

[Not_Giving_Up]

15. Brazoria County

Near the Harris County line

[Lady Effingbroke]

4. That was some light show last night!

Nice cool weather now - luckily the worst of the storms didn't hit my part of town. Many small limbs fell from the HUGE trees surrounding my house, though, and as per usual this time of year, there are PLENTY of leaves to rake.

[emad]

5. What a great sig name!

x

[maddezmom]

8. yeah, we had strong winds, hail and lost power for a few hours

all of our furniture blew off the porch and was scattered all over the yard.

[Liberty Belle]

3. Any chance it took out a certain ranch in Crawford?

[emad]

6. A plague of locusts has just diverted from Nouakchott, Mauritania

and hit Israeli seaside resort of Eilat.

Maybe small miraculous Thanksgiving Day diversion to Crawford tomorrow?

[gratuitous]

7. Hmmmm

You know, some people might interpret that as the judgment of God. I'm not sayin' I'd say that, but, you know, some people might.

[Bridget Burke]

10. Some people feel the same about AIDS.

Are you one of them?

And aren't there some fault lines & dormant volcanoes up your way?

[gratuitous]

12. Oops

That's the trouble with online sarcasm; it's too iffy.

Yes, Bridget, "some people" say that AIDS is a judgment from God, and use that hare-brained thinking as an excuse to avoid dealing with a public health problem. So much easier and cheaper to just blame a sick person than help him.

Yet, our popular media never tire of putting people who think in such a way on the cable shows and the news programs, or quoting them in the newspaper. This popular airing has really given bigotry a respectability it doesn't deserve. Oddly enough, when the same "logic" is applied to other circumstances, suddenly many of those same folks are horribly offended that someone should imply (or say outright) that the unfavorable judgment of the Almighty might be visited upon them.

A curious phenomenon, no?

[Carolina]

23. good thoughts to my TX, LA and MISS DUers

but I agree with gratuitous. My first thought was of divine justice to red states. But I better hush my mouth and banish the thought(s) since I'm blue in a blue county in a frigginly stupid RED state

[Occulus]

9. It's almost December.

I live in MI. At this time of year, when I was a kid, we'd have at least a foot of snow on the ground by now.

However, I do vaguely remember one Christmas back then when it was so warm we opened up our gifts under the birch tree in our front yard. Temps were in the 70s! It was a record high for Christmas day- highest recorded temp in history for our location, IIRC.

Today- gloomy, no snow. Lots of drizzle lately.

I miss snow.

[Occulus]

25. Update: It's snowing here now! :)

[Catfight]

11. Good thing Jesus will help them out. n/t

[BadGimp]

13. God hates the Red State

hey it's possible :o

[Not_Giving_Up]

17. But some of us are BLUE!!!!

[rainbow4321]

30. Better channeling of anger needed...

Maybe if some of these posters spent more energy on rallying the dems in the red states instead of doing an overall diss/die, die, die
attitude towards our states, there would have been a lot LESS red states. You will get OUT of our states what you put IN to our states...write us off and well, yeah, we end up staying red and you end up asking yourselves after each election "what went wrong?"

I started posting these stats the days after Black Tuesday in defense of some of us in Texas:
Counties that went BLUE in Texas: Travis County <where Austin is> and El Paso County.. Dallas County was deep purple...2% shy of turning blue <they did elect the Hispanic female who is a lesbian, remember?????>---even some dem judges got elected. The areas of Texas down by the Tex-Mex border were bright blue. Hell, even down in Harris County <Houston--bush country>, the dems got almost 45%.

[CBGLuthier]

14. Wow, only one and a half god hates the red state posts

Are we getting more compassionate?

I knew as soon as I saw the initial post there would be some.

[Bridget Burke]

16. And both from blue states with really interesting plate tectonics.

"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.".

[colonel odis]

18. well, i was going to say something about them being red states, but

now i'd feel silly.

gee, thanks.

[Liberal Veteran]

19. Well it would be nice if some people grew a sense of humor....

Making an ironic comment about God hating red states or something like that is tongue in cheek and people should just take it as such instead of being so serious all the time. Sometimes people just have to stop being so damn offended at everything.

It's not like the religious whack jobs don't take every opportunity to blame every little thing on gays, abortion, and no forced prayer in schools and they REALLY mean it.

So I say, make a comment if you like.

[Bridget Burke]

20. Know any good AIDS jokes?

I've got a sense of humor but get bored easily.

[Liberal Veteran]

22. Sure do. I make jokes about the fact I have full-blown AIDS all the time.

It helps to deal with the fact that it sucks having AIDS and that I haven't been able to sleep in for almost 5 years because I have to get up and take my meds.

:)

[Bridget Burke]

24. I'm very sorry for your illness.

All my friends with AIDS got it back in the 80's & none of them had any meds to keep them awake--or alive.

But some idiots do claim that God is behind any evil that occurs. And some of them find it funny.

[Liberal Veteran]

26. All I am really is saying is try to see the diff between actual vitriol...

....and tongue-in-cheek humor.

When push comes to shove, I think you are gonna be hard pressed to find a liberal on this board who really means it when they say "See? God is punishing the red states!".

Life is way too short to take offense to off-the-cuff sarcasm.

It's a far cry from when some jerk on the right claims 9/11 is God's punishment for tolerance of gays and abortion rights and REALLY means it.

And I have had HIV since 1985 myself (due to a cheating boyfriend) but am one of the lucky ones who survived for 15 years without the need for meds. I lost a lot of friends to this disease and I have learned that a lot of the times, laughter is one the best medicines in the world.

[CBGLuthier]

27. Unfortunately, some people here do mean it

There has been enough out-and-out hatred posted on DU directed at the red states to spin off our own version of Free Republic.

Take a good look at some of the threads about the Wisconsin shooting for examples of fuck the red states and all their peoples mentatlity that has poisoned this board since the election.

My comment was mostly about the predictability of these stupid comments.

[Liberal Veteran]

28. Well, I think the anger at the red states is somewhat understandable....

.... given what the Bush voters in those states have saddled us with for the next few years and the idiocy that allows people to vote for Bush despite their own self-interest, but I rather think it's a leap to assume that most people really mean it when they crack wise about tornadoes which have been striking for tornado alley for hundreds of years.

[CBGLuthier]

29. I just don't have any sense of humor about some things

Part of that may be the fact that as I type this I am sitting less than a mile from the path of the 99 tornado that killed 44 people.

Anger towards the so-called red states is stupid. Period. Not in the least understandable except by people who are just lashing out.

I have checked the vote counts on more than a few blue states and found that in quite a few of them that less than 300,000 people changing their votes would have turned those elitist blue states into the hated red states.

So no. I don't have a sense of humor about red state bashing.
I don't have a sense of humor about people dieing.

I wonder, if the Murrah bombing were to occur tomorrow how many jokes would be made about that, followed quickly by the lame-ass, Just Kidding.

[lastliberalintexas]

21. Heck, I thought those same

things myself. And I live here (and in the storm area) for goodness sakes! A lot of people do need to lighten up.

That said, some people might behaving a bad day. I snapped at someone in a Texas thread within the past couple of weeks, even though I criticize this state myself. :-)