Portlight Disaster Relief 

Harrisburg Illinois Disaster 2/29/12

Uploaded by demonsmind on Feb 29, 2012

This is a slideshow of the destruction left behind after an early morning tornado. Hundreds of homes were lost, and hundreds of people were injured.

Happy to take a drive down and help out any way I can. Let me know what I can do to help.

Portlight Update on Harrisburg Tornado relief...

Portlight and team Rubicon are partnering for the relief effort in Harrisburg.

We have a wunder blogger who is well seasoned from last years outbreak,Thomas in the area at this time.


Were asking for wunderbloggers who can Volunteer their time and backs for this relief effort.

Right now were asking for those in the following areas
(Southern Illinois, East Central Missouri and Western Indiana) to go on standby to help out...

If interested, feel free to make a entry here or in the portlight blog.

Also one can wu-mail myself or Presslord as well.

Thanks


Team Rubicon @ work last Spring

Paul call me.
Sarah

Good luck and Godspeed to the Portlight volunteers in Harrisburg. You guys please be careful out there! Another large tornado outbreak is set up to hit the same areas devastated from the storms that have occurred these last few days. Be sure to have a shelter plan if things get hairy! Wish I could be there to assist!

Team Rubicon is partnering with us during this mission of relief. Anyone interested in Helping, or forming a Go team to assist can do so in the Portlight Blog, or contact Presslord, floodman, or myself via Wu-Mail.

I'd fly in and help, if I could. So I've done what I can.

Thank You for helping those in need!

Greg Cook hands his dog Coco to Donnie Watts inside the destroyed home in Limestone County, Ala. on Friday, March 2, 2012. A reported tornado destroyed several houses in northern Alabama as storms threatened more twisters across the region Friday (AP Photo/The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr.)

Live in Panama City Florida. Who can I contact I can take in a family. Have two empty bedrooms. Can take medically involved kids former medical foster parent. Thanks.

Morning Floodman. Paul and I talked yesterday. I have along with Ron Myers posted all the information on FaceBook. Wish we were closer and could volunteer. What a horrible situation for so many.

I want to thank everyone Helping Portlight and other relief Agencies in the aftermath of yesterdays, tragic events.
Were all Human and in these times we need to show our Humanity in a way that is pro-active and with directed purpose.
Many, many lost all and the road back to any normality seems far off. Know that we @ Portlight/Team Rubicon will be doing what we can to the best of our abilities.
With Hard work, and a dedication to mission statement, we intend to make a difference, and I know we will.

People helping people.

♥♥♥ BUMP ♥♥♥

As usual, people are coming out of the woodwork to help with our response. What we do is not an organization...it's a movement. And you're a part of it...and it's pretty awesome...

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Rabbi Hillel

From left, Alli Ferrell, 10, and cousin Christian Murray, 12, sit on the front porch, as Lindsey Murray, 15, of Harrisburg, Ill., paints "for sale fixer upper" on the side of the home of their grandmother, Sharon Murray, 61, after a tornado destroyed the house in Harrisburg, Ill., Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012. A tornado struck the small town in southern Illinois killing 6. Murray was not at home at the time of the storm Read more here:

http://www.thestate.com/2012/03/01/2174291/the-da ily-edit-030212.html

Indiana mother, Stephanie Decker, loses legs saving kids from tornado.
Tuesday March 6, 2012

Parents Joe and Stephanie Decker are shown here with their children Dominic and Reese. When a tornado slammed into their home, Stephanie Decker shielded her children with her own body and lost her legs. (Decker Family/Handout)

AP: INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana woman who saved her two children by binding them together with a blanket and shielding them with her body as a tornado ripped apart their house lost parts of both her legs, which were crushed by the falling debris, her husband says.

Stephanie Decker, a 36-year-old sleep specialist, lost one leg above the knee and the other above the ankle, her husband said Monday. She was in serious but stable condition at a Kentucky hospital. The couple's 8-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter survived Friday's storm unscathed.

"I told her, `They're here because of you,"' Joe Decker said by telephone from the University of Louisville Hospital. "I let her know that nothing else matters. I said, `You're going to be here for your kids, and you get to see them grow up."'

Decker, 42, was at Silver Creek High School in Sellersburg, where he teaches algebra, when the tornado hit. With storms expected, the school had been locked down, and he was debating whether to try to race home. Decker exchanged a series of texts with his wife, urging her to get herself and their children into the basement of their sprawling, three-story brick and stone home in Marysville, Ind.

"Then she sent me a text saying the whole house was shaking, and I texted her back and asked her if everything was OK," he said. "I asked her about six or seven times and got no response. That kind of freaked me out."

He said his wife told him later that she was in their walk-out basement, which had French doors leading outside and a wall of windows, when she saw the tornado approaching, moving across the family's 15-acre plot. Stephanie Decker had already tied a blanket around both children and to herself, and she threw herself on top of the children.

"She said she felt the whole house start to go, and then she felt like it moved them about before it kind of wedged her in there, but she was able to keep the kids from moving away," Decker said.

When the tornado passed, Stephanie Decker called to the children. Reese, 5, answered immediately, but Dominic, 8, hesitated before saying he was OK. Decker said his son told him he couldn't hear his mother because of the roar of the storm.
Dominic, however, soon ran across the street to seek help from neighbors, who had taken refuge in a storm cellar, Decker said. One neighbor, realizing the severity of Stephanie's injuries, ran for help and found a deputy sheriff traveling on a four-wheeler about a quarter of a mile away. The deputy applied tourniquets to Stephanie Decker's legs to halt her blood loss.

She has been scheduled to undergo surgery on her legs again Thursday, hospital spokeswoman Holly Hinson said.

"The house is gone. It's pretty amazing that she's alive," Hinson said.
With trees blocking the road after the storm, Decker said he ran part of the way home before two men gave him a ride. He found his house gone and his children with a family friend. His wife had been taken to a hospital 10 miles away, and the men drove him there, allowing him to see Stephanie briefly before she was airlifted to the Louisville hospital.

"I was afraid I might never see her again," Decker said.

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