Stay safe everyone

looks like a rough night weather wise!!

Thanks for the well wishes....I pray everyone is safe tonight.....

I live in Hugo, and the major damage is about 10 blocks to east of us. Luckily we got off with just a bit of minor siding damage. Keep the families of those not as fortunate in your thoughts tonight.

Hanover was on the beginning end of the bad weather today - we were missed by the first wave, but hit pretty good by the 2nd... and even had a third before it was over.  I've never seen hail that big!  We have a few good chunks in our freezer.  I was confident my garden window was going to be demolished, but somehow we managed to escape with nothing but a few branches & such down!   My heart broke when I heard of the 2 year old that was killed in Hugo.. poor precious angel...  and I hope and pray the other 20 that are currently unaccounted for are just out of town, not hurt or buried in any rubble. 

All of the people have now been accounted for, thank goodness. I live on the opposite side of Highway 61 from where the major damage was. It's so sad, but as they said on the newscast, thank goodness it's a holiday weekend and not everyone was home. The injury list would have been far more extensive, I believe! Where is Hanover, if you don't mind me being so naive? There are so many little towns in MN that you don't know where they are!! :)

Hanover is just south of St. Michael, which is just south of Albertville.  East of Buffalo.  West of Maple Grove.  We're just on the Wright County side of the Crow River, where the earliest reports of serious weather came from - at least on WCCO...  I was in Maple Grove with  my mom when the sirens went off, so by instinct I switched my radio to 'CCO and listened as all the callers reported busted out windshields, buggared up cars & all.  Fortunately, it sounds like we were on the south end of the worst of it, so there was minimal damage here.

It was a CRAZY night!! When you work in a newsroom and a tornado strikes, all hell breaks loose. We had our 3  reporters driving all around town trying to guess where the worst weather was headed.  Coon Rapids and Hugo were hit with a tornado. Our phones did not stop ringing  for about 4 hours straight. I had so many hail photos sent to me that I could probably make a picture book the size of a dictionary. We have them all up on our website. It's sad to hear the little one died. His (I believe it was a boy...) parents are in the hospital  and his little sister is as well, from what we heard.  At least 50 homes destroyed. It was a mess. I'm hoping there is an opportunity to head that way this week to help out, though I don't know how much I can help.  I can't really lift much b/c I'm not that far out from surgery, but we'll see. Say a little prayer for everyone there. You can always tell when something really REALLY impacts someone when a man cries. We interviewed a man who was really really upset and it broke my heart. Good night all. Tomorrow will be a calmer but sad day for everyone in Hugo.