My parents return to Lawrence tomorrow but the storm should've passed through by then so I'm not worried about them flying back in. I wonder how long it'll take to get the huge tree out of our driveway!

Wow, so KU is closed today because 60% of the buildings were damaged. Early pictures I've seen show many of the downtown businesses with blown out windows and twisted awnings. Eeks. It's a good thing this storm hit when it did, or else people may've been hurt.

The storms that hit the Midwest this morning hit my hometown (Lawrence) pretty bad--we live 5 min. away from KU. Fortunately, my parents are on vacation right now and weren't home. There's a gigantic tree at our house that was planted ~20 years ago---apparently, the winds completely rooted it and it fell onto our driveway. Fortunately, it didn't fall in the other direction towards the house or else there'd be a huge hole in my bedroom! Electricity is out for 20,000+ houses including ours---strangely, our guest house had electricity and some family friends of ours were able to rescue the many indoor tropical fish we have in our house with some massively long extension cords to the house so that the water pumps to get the air flowing for the fish. So sad--I'll be heading back home in 1.5 weeks and will see the damage.

Quoted: Severe storms swept through parts of Kansas and Missouri Sunday, with winds that knocked over airplanes at the downtown Kansas City airport and ripped roofs off homes, businesses, and buildings at the University of Kansas.