Twister!
So we had a tornado Friday night.
We were under a tornado watch all evening. I'd been keeping an eye on the weather channel... but mostly it was just severe storms... but nothing tornadic. Then around midnight, right when I was getting ready for bed, the warning went off, and the sirens in town started to wail. I turned the TV to the local news... and it looked like the rotation in the storm was going to pass just south of town. I called my mom to let her know.. just in case things got really bad. That's when the direction of the storm changed, and it was now headed right toward where I live.
I kept checking outside, just to get a sense of the storm. About five minutes later, the air just got really eery feeling... and it grew much, much darker. Then the lights started to flicker. I told my mom that it was about to get bad, and I was going to take cover. She goes, "Well do you want to stay on the line with me???" (Sure, so you can witness over the phone me getting sucked away into oblivion.) And I told her no... just for that reason... and so I'd have both hands free to cover myself or whatever.
I grabbed the flashlight, radio, pillow, etc. and got into a closet,. I've been through bad storms before... and while I take them seriously... I don't *really* expect the worst either. Within a minute... I could hear a roaring sound off in the distance. At first I thought it was thunder... but it was continuous... and getting louder and closer. That's when it hit me that this was the real thing. As the roaring got closer... I said a little prayer and just thought about there being only one solid wall between me and the unthinkable.
That's when the roaring gradually faded out into the distance, and I gave a sigh of relief. Come to find out... an EF1 tornado had touched down within a mile of my house. There were also three other touchdowns within 10 miles of here... one of which destroyed the pavilion at the Fairgrounds about 3 miles from where I live as you can see in the pic. It also went right through where one of my coworkers lives, and he unabashedly said he was lucky to be alive.
Like I said, I've been through some bad storms before, but I'd never before heard that distinctive and quite unnerving 'roar' of a tornado. And to think it was just an EF1.
We were under a tornado watch all evening. I'd been keeping an eye on the weather channel... but mostly it was just severe storms... but nothing tornadic. Then around midnight, right when I was getting ready for bed, the warning went off, and the sirens in town started to wail. I turned the TV to the local news... and it looked like the rotation in the storm was going to pass just south of town. I called my mom to let her know.. just in case things got really bad. That's when the direction of the storm changed, and it was now headed right toward where I live.
I kept checking outside, just to get a sense of the storm. About five minutes later, the air just got really eery feeling... and it grew much, much darker. Then the lights started to flicker. I told my mom that it was about to get bad, and I was going to take cover. She goes, "Well do you want to stay on the line with me???" (Sure, so you can witness over the phone me getting sucked away into oblivion.) And I told her no... just for that reason... and so I'd have both hands free to cover myself or whatever.
I grabbed the flashlight, radio, pillow, etc. and got into a closet,. I've been through bad storms before... and while I take them seriously... I don't *really* expect the worst either. Within a minute... I could hear a roaring sound off in the distance. At first I thought it was thunder... but it was continuous... and getting louder and closer. That's when it hit me that this was the real thing. As the roaring got closer... I said a little prayer and just thought about there being only one solid wall between me and the unthinkable.
That's when the roaring gradually faded out into the distance, and I gave a sigh of relief. Come to find out... an EF1 tornado had touched down within a mile of my house. There were also three other touchdowns within 10 miles of here... one of which destroyed the pavilion at the Fairgrounds about 3 miles from where I live as you can see in the pic. It also went right through where one of my coworkers lives, and he unabashedly said he was lucky to be alive.
Like I said, I've been through some bad storms before, but I'd never before heard that distinctive and quite unnerving 'roar' of a tornado. And to think it was just an EF1.