From Twitter 04-12-2011

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Looking for something good to do?

I know everyone out there has their charities they donate to, but if you're looking for something extra to do, consider giving to the tornado relief fund at the Merrill Chamber of Commerce. According to the Chambers website: The Merrill Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation has established a Tornado Relief Fund to address long-term and unmet needs for businesses and families that have been affected by Sunday’s tornado in Merrill.

The foundation will be working with the Lincoln County Emergency Management and Wisconsin Regional Emergency Management staffs to further establish what some of the unmet needs will be for victims of the storm once initial assessments of the damage have been determined this week. Officials know that there will be many unmet needs that will occur in the coming weeks and months following such a devastating storm.

“The Regional Emergency Management folks have a lot of experience in this area and understand that there will be long range needs following the initial impact,” said Debbe Kinsey, Foundation Fund Administrator. “Both the Chamber and the Foundation understand that we must think beyond the initial impact and start to prepare for what the unmet needs will be once other organizations have stopped providing immediate emergency assistance.”

If you are interested:
     Make the check out to-
          Chamber Foundation Tornado Relief Fund
     and send it to-
          Merrill Chamber of Commerce
          705 N. Center Avenue
          Merrill, WI 54452

Thank you for your consideration! Thoughts and prayers are always appreciated.

More tornado pics...

There are a great series of pictures from The Wausau Daily Herald on the aftermath and clean up for the tornado. I thought I'd share.

Merrill Tornado 135 pics from Monday, the day after the tornado. Most of this damage wasn't by my folks. The pines took a hell of a beating.

Storm Damages from the Sky 18 pictures of the damage to the Industrial Park and the pine forests that were leveled. There are several houses that were taken out, too. The houses/forest damage pictured here was off of Pier Street and happened after the Industrial Park was hit.

Tuesday Clean Up 27 pictures taken on Tuesday of the damage and work being done. Everyone working are volunteers. They brought their own trucks, saws, gas, food... It pays to live in a town where most everyone owns a chainsaw and know how to use it. Most of these pictures were taken within a quarter of my parents house -- and you've probably seen me post my pictures of the damage. The clean up is going fairly well.

Wednesday Clean Up 23 pictures from Wednesday of the continued work. The best thing about this set of pictures is that they all have captions that explain more about them. Plus the pictures of the Swendrzynskis are amazing with how well they are coping.

There was also this wonderful video from The Weather Channel that starts out with a truly scary shot of the tornado taken off of I39. At this point it had already taken out the Industrial Park, airport, the houses of the people who are in the rest of the video and a whole hell of a lot of trees. In the next minute or so it crossed Hwy K, just south of where I grew up. The people in the video are amazing.

I have to admit that the all the reporting done on this really shows Merrill's best side. These are the people that I know and love, my neighbors. Yeah. We are that good, especially when the chips are down.

( And because I can't stop watching them, more videos: )

Remember if you want to help with Tornado Relief, check out my previous post. THANKS!