Saturday, April 30, 2011

Josh's eyewitness view of deadly storms






I have just now been able to catch up with all my e-mails since Wednesday's deadly storms. Through out that day I took a lot of photos with my cell phone and sent them back to the station. All of these photos were taken in Greenback, TN (where the National Weather Service has confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down) It wasn't until now how blessed I feel that I survived those storms. As you can see . . . at times it got pretty scary.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Deadly storms cause destruction through the South


It has been a crazy week. On Monday, a microburst (tornado force winds) knocked down trees through out Knoxville. It also knocked out power to my apartment for two nights. Then on Wednesday, several deadly storms came through the area killing 7 people near Knoxville. I reported all day Wednesday from a storm shelter in Greenback, TN. There was some scary times. Today I did a follow up story on some flooded roads. If you look carefully behind me an 18-year-old girl drove through the flooded water. She got out, but her car wasn't so lucky. WARNING: Never drive through high flooded roads!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Reporting from a BIG hole


Tonight I am doing a story about a proposed landfill in a decades old quarry located in Crab Orchard, TN. The man who owns the quarry did an interview and let me drive all the way to the bottom of it. It is 100 feet deep and is 10 acres wide. It is pretty impressive.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

What a GREAT vacation!
















I just got back home from one of the best vacations I have ever been on. Everything was perfect. If you haven't been on Facebook lately I will fill you in. Last Sunday, Harrison Youngblood (my nephew in Asheville, NC) and I headed on a big adventure. Our first stop was Silver Springs, MD. We stayed with Dorothy Smith (a very cool lady I taught on my mission). We stayed with Sister Smith for two nights. On the first day we visited the Washington, D.C. Temple and did some family history (Sis. Smith volunteers at the church family history library.) On Tuesday, we ventured onto the Metro (Washington's version of the Subway) and spent the day in Washington, D.C. We crammed as much in as we could: 4 museums (including the new Holocaust Museum) and several memorials (including the Washington, WW II, and Lincoln). A nice tourist also took our photo in front of the capital building. On Wednesday, we headed to Clinton, NJ. This city was the last area I served as a missionary back in 2000. We stayed with the Price Family. They were some members of the church who I really got close to. We got to go with them to take their dog to fly ball training. They also bought NJ pizza for Harrison (it is sooooo good). On Thursday, we left NJ and headed to New York City. Our first stop was Ellis and Liberty Islands. This was Harrison's first time to see the Statue of Liberty. We were not able to climb to the crown, but got to the top of the pedestal. After riding ferries for most of the day we got on another boat (a water taxi) and headed to lower Manhattan. We got to see the Freedom Tower being built (the memorial being built where the Twin Towers used to stand). Harrison ate his first NYC hot dog and got a I LOVE NY t-shirt. We also took a photo in front of the subway. On Friday, we drove 10 hours back to Asheville. The next day was my birthday, so I took Harrison, his brother Hunter, and their oldest sister, Kelsey to Dollywood. We were afraid it was going to rain, but the weather was perfect (we rode all of the water rides). To top off the day we went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede (a cool dinner/show in Pigeon Forge, TN). Kelsey and I were selected to participate in the show, and we won medals for riding a stick horse the fastest. Even though I paid $3.89 for gas (in MD), and got a year older (32 ugh!) this was one of the best weeks ever!