Alyice on May 30th, 2008

Tornado Season

Last night we had our first official tornado warning for our hometown and we weren’t happy but then again who is ever really happy when a tornado comes roaring through their hometown?

Usually the tornados in our state don’t get this close and it’s one of the reasons I like living here, but last night was a different story. We’ve had severe thunderstorm warnings, on and off, for the past few weeks then last night a severe thunderstorm began making its way towards us. The news had been reporting tornado warnings on and off all night, but nothing near us.

Then we saw our city name flash across the television screen and heard the word: Tornado. We were in disbelief. We’ve never experienced a tornado before and didn’t want to experience one now. But no sooner did we see our city name flash on the screen did we hear it: the warning siren.

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It was time to make our way to the basement. We grabbed our shoes, closed the doors to each room (don’t even know why I did that), grabbed our caged animal friends, and walked down to the basement where we commenced to turn on the radio and await the news that the tornado had passed. There was only one problem, we didn’t have any batteries in the radio so as my husband and I made our way back upstairs I stopped to look outside the kitchen window and pray.

The winds grew so strong that the trees no longer appeared to be dancing in the wind but moving about with anger and rage, the sky grew darker, the seconds between each sound of thunder and the actual lighting grew closer together, we felt the rumbles in the ground, and the house began to shake. For the first time in my life I was afraid that a tornado would touch down on our home, in our city.

I thought about my prayer and realized I wasn’t praying with all my heart, I had allowed the surrealism of the moment to take hold. So I stopped praying. Looked outside the kitchen window again and prayed again. I prayed that the tornado would not harm us. I prayed for protection of my family by naming each member one by one. I prayed for our home, and I prayed that the tornado would dissipate.

Then I made my way back downstairs where I heard my husband say, “this is going to be a long night” and my son say, “it’s going to be a boring night—we don’t even have a television down here to pass the time.” I glanced over at my daughter and smiled as she sat Indian style on the floor, blanket surrounding her, and earplugs in her ears. She was watching a movie on her iPod and oblivious to what was taking place around her.

Fifteen minutes later we were notified that it was okay to leave the basement. A half hour later my daughter received a phone call from her friend: “Are you okay? Were you scared? If we make it through this night alive do you want to hang out tomorrow?”

Until next time…