I came home early, along with a good portion of the people in the area

All day we've been at something the Weather Channel calls TOR:CON 9, meaning we have a 9 in 10 chance of a tornado in the area.

Because it was set to hit about the commute, the city sent home non-essential personnel, the University of Kentucky cancelled late classes, and many, many businesses closed or sent who they could home so they wouldn't be en route anywhere.

The line of thunderstorms was set to hit about the time I would normally take the bus home, so one of my co-workers took me home a bit early. I've been watching the weather for a little over two hours. The storms are very fast. Owen and Grant counties, where my dad is from, got hit pretty hard, and my mom's under a tornado warning (one of many) right now. Boyle and Lincoln have been hit over and over, and a new storm is on its way. At one point they told everyone at the Cincinnati Airport (which is in northern Kentucky) to head to the basement. One Kentuckian is dead, they're reporting, from Kenton county. They've reported everything from pea-sized to softball-sized hail throughout the state, and several tornadoes have been spotted. A tornado seems to have hit West Liberty, which had one just two days ago, causing extensive damage. In fact, the storms have tended to track very similar to the ones on Wednesday.

At one point we had a tornado warning here, and I went into the bathroom for its duration. The storm was travelling at 85 miles per hour. Really. Fortunately they seem to have passed for Lexington and to the north and west, but south and eastern Kentucky is still very much in danger. But I'm feeling a little more at ease here; there's even some clearing to the west--I can see blue sky as the sun sets. Good luck to those out there still dealing with the storms.