Facebook turned out to be a wonderful thing yesterday! It kept many ferret owners and shelters in touch with one another round the clock while a history making weather system clobbered the Southeast part of the country. I eased my nerves by sending updates, frivilous photos and vids by the hour all day on the social site filled with many people whom I sure were uninterested. I couldn't help myself from sharing my antics because it made me feel better to feel "connected" and not alone. I saw, at the same time, that miraculously, my ferret friends came out okay and that was comforting to see throughout the day and night. This system was historical in many ways. To give you an idea of why it was so amazingly different than others, imagine that instead of a mass storm or line of storms, a map that was spotted like a leopard with tornado filled super cells throughout the land of Dixie. Instead of one storm system front or a double front blazing through your area, imagine one hitting you after another only an hour or so apart. One supercell after another passing over you from dawn to midnight. Many people had no cover to take after the first front or tornado that wiped out their homes and had to face two, three, sometimes six more cells thereafter. Another unique thing about the system was that you were not safe even if you weren't in the path of a tornado. These cells contained wind sheers over 50 mph, and many over 100 mph (which is more than a small tornado). Wind sheers last longer. The destruction is as bad and sometimes more so than a tornado. So, just because a tornado didn't occur in an area, does not mean they are necessarily "okay". Dixie Alley actually experiences more tornado's than the misnamed tornado alley in the Midwest. But even we have never seen such a bizarre, unrelenting system such as this. While I took cover downstairs with a menagerie of confused animals (several times over), I came to find that my ferrets thought this was one huge social gathering. I thought animals were supposed to "know/sense" these things and display strange behaviors in response to impending natural disasters. Nope. Not mine. The yawns, stretches, and frequent litter box visits went on just as always. The only difference was their joy in seeing other animals about the room. So, I took their advice, shrugged and decided to let it go as it may. It was out of my control. I took out the clippers and q-tips and we enjoyed a typical grooming day together. For a time, my attention was on whether I was too close to a quick or not. The times downstairs were the only times I relaxed and forgot about what was happening outside ... other than joining the rednecks and hillbillies outside between storms and going, "yep" with them. It'd be nice if those of you that were in the path of this immense system that marched through the middle of the country clear to the Atlantic chimed in and let us know that they are okay. Wolfy [Posted in FML 7047]