the tornados...my side of the story, finally
So, it’s almost a month after the tornados went through Springfield and I’m just now writing about it, but hey, at least it’s an update. J So that night my sister calls me telling me how a tornado touched down south of Jacksonville and was now headed straight for Springfield. She was at our parent’s house at the time (an hour south of Springfield) and was on the back porch telling me how if you look over towards the neighbor’s houses, there was a clear starry sky, but if you looked towards the Raymond/Springfield direction, you could see the anvil head of the storm. Well, for those of you who don’t know, my sister is a meteorology major. So I could just imagine her out there doing the whole “weather girl” thing. Well, about the time she finished telling me all of this, the alarms sounded. I was like, great. So I grabbed a flashlight, blanket, book, and my purse and headed downstairs. There’s no basement on our apartment building so I just went under the stairwell. I was still on the phone with my sister and she was more scared for me than I was. She kept giving me a play-by-play as to what was going on according to WAND. At one point the sirens at the TV station went off and then the screen went black. My sister tells me this and then our power went out. Throughout all of this, I’m on the phone with Nicole, and Bethany is calling me periodically. It’s storming like crazy outside and then I finally start to freak out a little when it begins to sound like the window on the door is about to shatter.
So now the storm’s over, I’ve gone back upstairs and lit about 6 candles so that I can take a shower. I go to bed around 11, like usual, and then Bethany calls me (and wakes me up) around midnight. She said something that scared me at first (remember I’m still half-asleep and not fully coherent) and then says she was joking but that she was staying the night in Springfield because the cops wouldn’t let her get to her truck to leave. I’m like ok, cool, whatever, and go back to sleep. Then she calls me AGAIN sometime between 2-2:30. I thought, what the hell is she doing, calling me, and waking me up AGAIN!!?? She informs me that the second storm is finally there and that they’re back in the basement of her date’s apartment building. So I folded up my blanket, grabbed my purse and flashlight and looked out the window. There was nothing. There was no wind, no rain, nothing. I was like, what the hell is she talking about? Then about 30 minutes later it just hit and hit hard. So I went back downstairs, made myself a bed and slept under the stairs for about an hour. The worse part of it all?? I still had to go to work the next morning because we had generator power. Talk about crappy. But I survived, and I guess that’s all that really matters.
So now the storm’s over, I’ve gone back upstairs and lit about 6 candles so that I can take a shower. I go to bed around 11, like usual, and then Bethany calls me (and wakes me up) around midnight. She said something that scared me at first (remember I’m still half-asleep and not fully coherent) and then says she was joking but that she was staying the night in Springfield because the cops wouldn’t let her get to her truck to leave. I’m like ok, cool, whatever, and go back to sleep. Then she calls me AGAIN sometime between 2-2:30. I thought, what the hell is she doing, calling me, and waking me up AGAIN!!?? She informs me that the second storm is finally there and that they’re back in the basement of her date’s apartment building. So I folded up my blanket, grabbed my purse and flashlight and looked out the window. There was nothing. There was no wind, no rain, nothing. I was like, what the hell is she talking about? Then about 30 minutes later it just hit and hit hard. So I went back downstairs, made myself a bed and slept under the stairs for about an hour. The worse part of it all?? I still had to go to work the next morning because we had generator power. Talk about crappy. But I survived, and I guess that’s all that really matters.