[Mccoypottery-talk] spring storms (off topic and long - sorry) WAS: (no subject)

[Mark Jennings]

Tom,

I didn't see your first mail asking for the prayers until you'd already 
sent the one saying that you're ok. And I'm very glad that you're ok! And 
I'm glad that there's no damage to your property. But - when you find out 
that there's a tornado headed for you, I don't know of anybody who worries 
about the property at that moment. It's all about life and limb.

If y'all will allow me a few minutes ----- Until today, this entire week 
has been terrible around here weather-wise. Maybe writing will be 
therapeutic for me.

Monday morning when I woke up during a storm, the electricity was on, but 
apparently it had gone off at some point during the night because the alarm 
clock was "flashing." The back-up battery was dead, so I slept late. I 
looked at my watch. It was about 7:05. I don't know if it was the wind or 
the thunder that woke me up. It sounded horrible.

I'm lazy when I want to be  ;-)  so I have a television on top of a tall 
chest in my bedroom so that I can lay there in bed and watch it at night. 
Without even raising up, I immediately turned it on with the remote. At 
that moment, the weatherman was talking about the tornado warning for our 
little town. (I then sat up). The doppler radar was on the screen with one 
of those huge red "blobs" covering most of this county, with my immediate 
area on the southwest side of it - the side with the big "hook." He said 
that it hadn't been spotted on the ground yet, but told the very 
intersection where it was on radar (south 4 blocks and west 6 blocks from 
my house and said that it was going east-northeast - directly towards my 
house, and less than 2 miles away).

My 15 year old son was here, asleep in his room which has a rather large 
window - facing west! (My daughter was 8 miles away at her moms' house that 
morning for those of you who already know that I have a daughter). There's 
no basement in this house. My room is on the east side of the house, and my 
bedroom has an enclosed, tiled shower. (I know ... so what? But it *felt* 
safer). There are two closets, the hall, another closet, and a bedroom 
between my shower and the west side of the house - the direction the 
tornado was coming from. So needless to say, that's where I wanted Wesley - 
and myself!

I ran into his room and said, only a little bit louder than usual because I 
didn't want to scare the heck out of him, "Wesley, wake up!"  He didn't 
open his eyes, said "ok" and rolled over, facing the wall away in the other 
direction. (Honestly, he's a really great kid - *always* very respectful, 
but such a deadhead in the mornings). The wind was horrible and getting 
worse, literally by the second, so I raised my voice and said,  "*NOW*!!! 
GET UP!"  I never yell, so that scared him. He got up and ran down the hall 
with me toward my room, asking, "What's that siren?!" It was the tornado 
warning. They use a very loud siren for tornado warnings at a nearby fire 
station. I told him what was going on and what I wanted him to do while we 
were on the way to my shower, and as I was grabbing pillows from my bed.

I'm so thankful that the tornado didn't touch down. It was still raining 
hard, & thundering and lightning, but just about the time we got "squatted" 
into the shower and got the pillows pulled down over our heads, the 
strongest part of the wind was over.

A little more than 3 hours later, there was another tornado warning for our 
county. That one did touch down, but it was in a much more rural area about 
7 or 8 miles north of town. It took a barn and a few other farm buildings, 
but nobody was hurt. That was it as far as tornados went for us that day, 
but we had flash floods that day, the next day, AND the next! (One 31 year 
old man from our county drowned Tuesday in his car that was swept away).

I'll spare you the whole story of the F4 that I witnessed with my own eyes 
as it passed from west to east, 1 mile north of my house in 1995, except to 
say that it killed 3 people that I knew personally. Barb - I think that 
tornados probably occur more often in Oklahoma than in Tennessee, but if 
they're any worse than the ones here, I *never* want to live there.

Thanks for letting me "vent" !  I've had to stay "calm" about all the 
weather this week for the kids' sakes.

Mark

At 06:07 PM 5/9/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm here.
>The storm dissipated as it came into the immediate area!!!!!
>That was a close one.
>When I was a kid 12 or so, we had one come right down through the woods
>below my house.
>Ever since that close call I'm terrified of the spring storms!!!!
>Tom