Well, to add to our "fun" summer, we were awakened at 2:27am on Sunday morning by the storm siren in the park going off. We had been getting tornado warnings and watches floating aross the bottom of our TV screen on Saturday, but most were for outstate Nebraska and Iowa. This one was for us!
I woke my husband (who sleeps through anything) and he and I got dressed. In case the tornado did hit in our area, I didn't want to be wandering the street in my nightgown and Ken's usual bedtime attire... BVDs. We went to the family room in the basement.
We watched as the newscasters described the area where the most turbulance was....on 144th and Q and headed northeast towards 120th Street. By the time the TV stations started reporting, it had already torn roofs and buildings apart in Millard. Only one station, Channel 7, was broadcasting about the weather....Channels 3 and 6 were still showing old movies. WAKE UP GUYS! .... this is what you get paid the big bucks for!
It was raining extremely hard, I couldn't see the house behind us, and the wind was unbelievable, straight out of the west and nearly horizontal. We found out later that the tornado which was traveling 110-135 mph had been near 120th and Pacific Street by the time the sirens started wailing and I was in the kitchen trying to close windows. It was no longer a tornado but was creating tornadic winds. We live on 117th Street between Pacific and Dodge Streets....the funnel had gone back into the clouds when it passed over our area. It was not our time to be hit.
At 3:00am all was quiet....the wind had stopped and there was no sound....we went outside and it felt like the dead zone. The air was a strange color and very quiet. I've heard of being in the "eye" of a hurricane, but didn't think there was such a thing as the "eye" of a tornado.
We had no major damage other than a few branches that had blown off the trees...and furniture on our deck had been rearranged.
The crazy thing is....I called our daughter who lives on 168th and Pacific and our son who is on 13th and "P" Streets about 8:30 Sunday morning to see if everything was OK with them. NEITHER of them had heard the sirens and didn't know anything about a tornado hitting Millard....Nancy, our youngest, on the other hand, had spent the remainder of the night in the space under her basement steps with her husband Jon, the kids, the cat and dog. She called early Sunday to see if we were still in one piece.
No deaths had occurred although some folks were injured by flying debris and debris falling on them. A friend who lives in Florida once told me "we always have lots of warning and time to prepare when a hurricane is approaching, but a tornado just appears"....unless you have seen or been in one, you can't imagine how frightening and how much damage Mother Nature can do.
Our home is near where the tornado lifted......too close for comfort!
1 comment:
stories like this always remind me of the equality of mother nature. Tornados don't care how much money you have or the color of your skin... glad no one was killed.
Post a Comment