sneak up and hit you like a fuckin' tornado
So my brother works at the Ulta down at Southlands. This starts our tale today, because if he didn't work there this tale would not have occurred. (I'm not blaming anything on him lol, before you ask.)
My family had been sort of planning a barbecue for today, just for the hell of it. But yesterday we went to Elitch's and wasted the day away on frivolousness, meaning no chores got done. So my parents decided, "The hell with it, we'll do it another time, maybe next week before we go to the Outlaws game." Since Nick got off at 1:00 this afternoon, they decided we'd pick him up and grab some lunch at the Chipotle nearby.
...Whoops #1.
We got there, and they had just run out of rice. They apologized and said it'd be about 15 minutes for the next batch to cook. We could have decided to go somewhere else for lunch, but Chipotle sounded good to everyone. Besides, they gave us free chips and guac to tide us over till the rice finished.
...Whoops #2.
They finished the rice, and as we waited in line, we noticed it was starting to rain--what the hell, it was sunny just a few minutes ago. Colorado weather. Dad saw a coworker of his, and they struck up a conversation while the rest of us ordered our food and sat down to eat. A few minutes into the meal, someone says, "Hey, I just heard there's a tornado warning."
Dad whipped out his iPhone and checked the weather data. "Wow, there really is." And then we noticed the wind was picking up a bit, and the trees were kinda thrashing around.
Then someone goes, "Holy crap, there it is!" And everyone in the restaurant went to the back window, taking pictures with their cell phones.
We were awed. And a little nervous. That funnel cloud looked kinda close. But it didn't look like it was coming any closer, it was just sitting there. It even looked a little like it was dissipating...or breathing. Whatever it was doing, we sat back down and kept eating.
...Whoops #3. Although I personally believe this: The timing was such that if we had decided to leave then, we would have been in much worse shit than we wound up being in. Because 2 or 3 mintues later, the tornado touched down.
Hail started dropping--enormous, baseball-sized hail that thundered against the roof--coupled with wind that howled so loudly, we could barely hear each other above the din. I looked outside and saw the hail CIRCULATING in the wind, as well as leaves, twigs, and what looked like a few roof panels. One of the other patrons decided to take it upon himself to open a door--maybe to relieve the air pressure so the windows wouldn't burst inwards. Our ears popped and it got hard to breathe, the change in pressure was so large.
Suddenly the lights went out, and the umbrellas on the outside patio were snapping in the wind. True to our elementary school training, Melaina, Kristin, and I all dove under a table, curled up in a ball, and covered our heads. But not more than a few seconds after we'd gotten down there, the Chipotle manager yelled, "Everybody into the walk-in fridge, NOW!"
Melaina and I scrambled out from under the table and ran for the fridge. I stopped as I realized, "Wait! My stuff's still at the table!" "Forget your stuff!" the manager shouted, bending over to pry Kristin out from under the table. (We later found out that she was so terrified and in a state of shock, she hadn't heard the manager at all and was clinging to the table leg.) My mom grabbed both her purse and my bag, and we ran into the walk-in.
As soon as we were all in, the employees shut the door. There must have been about 20 of us, crammed together in the chilly, pitch-black room, a few of us taking out our cell phones for some light, waiting tensely, with no sound but the banshee winds and a few terrified sobs from Brooke. It seemed like hours before the noise subsided--in reality, it was a few minutes.
The manager poked his head out to see if it was safe. When he was convinced it was, we exited back out into the dining room. There was debris everywhere--rain, dirt, leaves and branches--but the store seemed mostly untouched. There was one shattered window
and all the outside tables and chairs had been pushed into a pile by the wind (I had a picture of this, but my stupid phone keeps resizing it for no reason), but that was about it for damages to the store. I was beginning to think maybe the storm hadn't been so bad.
Then a woman who had wandered to the front screamed, "OH MY GOD, A CAR GOT FLIPPED OVER!"
As I scanned the parking lot for more damage, my mom came up to where I was and gasped. I thought, Oh my god our car, did it flip too? and followed her line of sight. (the following picture was taken just before we left, but it fits here even if it is a time paradox)
Oh my god that back window is gone. Oh my god the windshield is smashed.
OH MY GOD the mirror is dangling by wires and the antenna snapped off and THAT WHOLE WINDOW'S GONE TOO. ...Ironic, that was the same window that got completely destroyed way back when we had that car accident, but it's a different car. Weird.
Around that time, the fire alarm went off. I'm not entirely sure why. But it was extremely loud and only made a jarring experience that much more jarring. I tried to call Matt to let him know we were alright, the tornado was gone (I'd been texting him and Andrew with messages like "holy lol there's a funnel cloud this is totally awesome" and "JESUS CHRIST GET YOUR FAMILY INTO THE BASEMENT NOW") but my phone wouldn't let me make outgoing calls so I had to stick to texting. But my service kept dropping occasionally and my phone screen is half-broken, so that only made things more harrowing.
While we were wandering around assessing damages and generally calming down, I took a couple more choice photos: a golf ball-sized hailstone ("Golf Ball-Sized Hail" is totally gonna be a trump card in Apples to Apples now)
and the back of Red Brick Pizza, which lost two entire walls and spewed insulation all over the road. (also pictured: a metal support beam, no idea where it came from, maybe the roof)
I think we waited for about half an hour to an hour--until we were sure the worst was over--before venturing outside to clear some of the the glass out of our cars and head home. Which was just as well, because Andrew had just sent me a message along the lines of "holy shit there's another one coming, get the fuck out of there now" and the police were evacuating everyone anyway due to a natural gas leak.
The ride home was a bit drafty, and every car that passed us was full of shocked stares and pointing fingers. Our van was running on empty, so we stopped at a gas station quickly to put a couple of dollars of gas into it. A couple bystanders came up and asked my mom, "Oh my god, were you guys in the tornado?"
"Yeah," she replied. "None of us got hurt, luckily."
Their eyes went wide in amazement. "But your car...!"
Mom chuckled humorlessly. "We were in the Chipotle when it happened; thank god we weren't in the car."
Once we'd finished at the gas station, we dropped Melaina's boyfriend off at his house (I think we may have scared him off forever), then headed home. Still shaken from the entire ordeal, we shivered in the cold wind blowing through the broken windows and thought about how lucky we were to be alive, let alone completely unhurt. Thank you, Mr. Chipotle Manager, for keeping a cool head and protecting us.
Oh...and to add insult to injury, the hail here at home covered my Kia in dents. Stupid box car.
My family had been sort of planning a barbecue for today, just for the hell of it. But yesterday we went to Elitch's and wasted the day away on frivolousness, meaning no chores got done. So my parents decided, "The hell with it, we'll do it another time, maybe next week before we go to the Outlaws game." Since Nick got off at 1:00 this afternoon, they decided we'd pick him up and grab some lunch at the Chipotle nearby.
...Whoops #1.
We got there, and they had just run out of rice. They apologized and said it'd be about 15 minutes for the next batch to cook. We could have decided to go somewhere else for lunch, but Chipotle sounded good to everyone. Besides, they gave us free chips and guac to tide us over till the rice finished.
...Whoops #2.
They finished the rice, and as we waited in line, we noticed it was starting to rain--what the hell, it was sunny just a few minutes ago. Colorado weather. Dad saw a coworker of his, and they struck up a conversation while the rest of us ordered our food and sat down to eat. A few minutes into the meal, someone says, "Hey, I just heard there's a tornado warning."
Dad whipped out his iPhone and checked the weather data. "Wow, there really is." And then we noticed the wind was picking up a bit, and the trees were kinda thrashing around.
Then someone goes, "Holy crap, there it is!" And everyone in the restaurant went to the back window, taking pictures with their cell phones.
We were awed. And a little nervous. That funnel cloud looked kinda close. But it didn't look like it was coming any closer, it was just sitting there. It even looked a little like it was dissipating...or breathing. Whatever it was doing, we sat back down and kept eating.
...Whoops #3. Although I personally believe this: The timing was such that if we had decided to leave then, we would have been in much worse shit than we wound up being in. Because 2 or 3 mintues later, the tornado touched down.
Hail started dropping--enormous, baseball-sized hail that thundered against the roof--coupled with wind that howled so loudly, we could barely hear each other above the din. I looked outside and saw the hail CIRCULATING in the wind, as well as leaves, twigs, and what looked like a few roof panels. One of the other patrons decided to take it upon himself to open a door--maybe to relieve the air pressure so the windows wouldn't burst inwards. Our ears popped and it got hard to breathe, the change in pressure was so large.
Suddenly the lights went out, and the umbrellas on the outside patio were snapping in the wind. True to our elementary school training, Melaina, Kristin, and I all dove under a table, curled up in a ball, and covered our heads. But not more than a few seconds after we'd gotten down there, the Chipotle manager yelled, "Everybody into the walk-in fridge, NOW!"
Melaina and I scrambled out from under the table and ran for the fridge. I stopped as I realized, "Wait! My stuff's still at the table!" "Forget your stuff!" the manager shouted, bending over to pry Kristin out from under the table. (We later found out that she was so terrified and in a state of shock, she hadn't heard the manager at all and was clinging to the table leg.) My mom grabbed both her purse and my bag, and we ran into the walk-in.
As soon as we were all in, the employees shut the door. There must have been about 20 of us, crammed together in the chilly, pitch-black room, a few of us taking out our cell phones for some light, waiting tensely, with no sound but the banshee winds and a few terrified sobs from Brooke. It seemed like hours before the noise subsided--in reality, it was a few minutes.
The manager poked his head out to see if it was safe. When he was convinced it was, we exited back out into the dining room. There was debris everywhere--rain, dirt, leaves and branches--but the store seemed mostly untouched. There was one shattered window
and all the outside tables and chairs had been pushed into a pile by the wind (I had a picture of this, but my stupid phone keeps resizing it for no reason), but that was about it for damages to the store. I was beginning to think maybe the storm hadn't been so bad.
Then a woman who had wandered to the front screamed, "OH MY GOD, A CAR GOT FLIPPED OVER!"
As I scanned the parking lot for more damage, my mom came up to where I was and gasped. I thought, Oh my god our car, did it flip too? and followed her line of sight. (the following picture was taken just before we left, but it fits here even if it is a time paradox)
Oh my god that back window is gone. Oh my god the windshield is smashed.
OH MY GOD the mirror is dangling by wires and the antenna snapped off and THAT WHOLE WINDOW'S GONE TOO. ...Ironic, that was the same window that got completely destroyed way back when we had that car accident, but it's a different car. Weird.
Around that time, the fire alarm went off. I'm not entirely sure why. But it was extremely loud and only made a jarring experience that much more jarring. I tried to call Matt to let him know we were alright, the tornado was gone (I'd been texting him and Andrew with messages like "holy lol there's a funnel cloud this is totally awesome" and "JESUS CHRIST GET YOUR FAMILY INTO THE BASEMENT NOW") but my phone wouldn't let me make outgoing calls so I had to stick to texting. But my service kept dropping occasionally and my phone screen is half-broken, so that only made things more harrowing.
While we were wandering around assessing damages and generally calming down, I took a couple more choice photos: a golf ball-sized hailstone ("Golf Ball-Sized Hail" is totally gonna be a trump card in Apples to Apples now)
and the back of Red Brick Pizza, which lost two entire walls and spewed insulation all over the road. (also pictured: a metal support beam, no idea where it came from, maybe the roof)
I think we waited for about half an hour to an hour--until we were sure the worst was over--before venturing outside to clear some of the the glass out of our cars and head home. Which was just as well, because Andrew had just sent me a message along the lines of "holy shit there's another one coming, get the fuck out of there now" and the police were evacuating everyone anyway due to a natural gas leak.
The ride home was a bit drafty, and every car that passed us was full of shocked stares and pointing fingers. Our van was running on empty, so we stopped at a gas station quickly to put a couple of dollars of gas into it. A couple bystanders came up and asked my mom, "Oh my god, were you guys in the tornado?"
"Yeah," she replied. "None of us got hurt, luckily."
Their eyes went wide in amazement. "But your car...!"
Mom chuckled humorlessly. "We were in the Chipotle when it happened; thank god we weren't in the car."
Once we'd finished at the gas station, we dropped Melaina's boyfriend off at his house (I think we may have scared him off forever), then headed home. Still shaken from the entire ordeal, we shivered in the cold wind blowing through the broken windows and thought about how lucky we were to be alive, let alone completely unhurt. Thank you, Mr. Chipotle Manager, for keeping a cool head and protecting us.
Oh...and to add insult to injury, the hail here at home covered my Kia in dents. Stupid box car.