In the last few weeks, tornadoes and floods have swept through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. In the past few days, I began to give serious thought to coming up with a way to let our family know that we are okay after these type events. I know that any time I hear about bad weather or despicable people doing heinous things in Aledo, Aspermont, Belton, Blakely, Clemson, Driggs, Fayetteville, Granby, Jackson, Memphis, Nashville, Osceola, Peculiar, Springdale, Victor, Weatherford or anywhere else my relatives have interests or activities, I wonder if you are alright and your stuff is okay. (I know I missed some locations, but I hope you get my point.) I will be bold and speculate that you might even have the same kind of concerns when you hear that storms blow through central Arkansas.

I came up with the idea for a blog. I wanted the name to be something that I could easily remember. I wanted it to be a vehicle for us to use primarily to report our status after catastrophic events and announce other important information that we want to share in an efficient manor. If you know the web site, you can look there for information.

In the event of a disaster, communications are sometimes dicey at best. Most of us carry cell phones, but you can't always get a call to go through and the person you want to call may not be available. Email and text communications will sometimes get through when calls cannot. You can post to the blog using email.

According to blogspot, a blog can be created that it is not visible to search engines.

I want to keep this relatively close. If you admit to being a relative of mine or Fran, you can join us. Send me an email and I'll give you the information necessary to post to the blog. You will be able to check the blog, even if you don't want to post to it, but please consider being a poster. The more that participate in posting, the better the blog will serve it's purpose. The blog is 4114family.blogspot.com.

NOTE: Please, never post sensitive data that you don't want to share with the world. Despite assurances that this blog will not be visible to search engines, I maintain some healthy skepticism.

I don't know exactly where this will go, or if it will go at all. I fully plan to coerce Jeff and John to participate. Consider joining me. Let's see if we can make it work. As new contributors are added, you will be able to see their names listed on the blog page.