This might come as a shock, considering I studied weather and have gone storm chasing a couple times. But the hard and fast reality of the matter is that I really, really hate storms. I think when I did storm chase, something deep down inside me knew that we weren't going to see anything. Because if I ever really did see a tornado, I would not really ever want to go toward it. I would want to go away...far, far, far away.
This fear entered into my life back in May of 1995. I was in forth grade and normally, in the morning, my grandmom would come up to our house, pick me up, and take me to the top of the lane to catch the school bus. But this particular morning it was pouring rain, and my mom didn't want my elderly grandmom to have to worry about getting out in the mess. So it was decided that I would go with my mom to the high school and my aunt would then drive me over to Wilmore Elementary during her first block planning.
That morning, what we thought was a tornado hit the high school. I remember being in my mom's classroom playing some game where I jumped over the chairs. Mom was walking back into the room and simply said, Mary, come here now. As soon as I got in the hallway, I heard a boom. I didn't know what had happened. Like I had been taught, I got in the tornado position in the hallway. It was somewhat chaotic. After I broke out of tornado position, I sat down next to the wall and I remember feeling water trickling down the wall onto my shirt.
They ushered us all into the cafeteria, eventually. I remember seeing a girl who could barely walk. Apparently something had fallen on her leg. My sister had been upstairs in the library for a Beta club meeting. My brother was outside in the school buses waiting for them to unload and then drive down the road to the middle school. My aunt was on the second floor, in a room that was almost completely destroyed. All of us were fine, but the high school itself suffered a lot of damage and a family friend was also badly injured. Her mom was a teacher at the school and her classroom was in a trailer outside.
I remember seeing the parents who had all lined up to pick up their children and hearing their reactions when told they could not yet pick up their kids. I remember hearing someone say the gym was destroyed, and that gas was starting to leak into the school building. The football stands were mangled. There were apartment buildings destroyed. It took us a long time to get home, and once there we had trees down and our trampoline had been picked up and thrown into the roof over our patio.
I don't like seeing destruction. I don't like seeing that side of Mother Nature. I think all of this is one reason why I studied meteorology. I wanted to learn more about it so that I could arm myself with knowledge whenever there was a storm. On a day like this though, I sometimes wish I didn't know as much as I know.
On the lighter side of things, after forth grade, whenever it would even rain, I was very tense. If the wind started to pick up at all, I would pack up a bag and grab all my favorite stuffed animals and go down to the basement. I was very good at tornado preparedness. Now, I still have my little haven.
In the hallway, I have pillows, flashlights, the weather radio, the computer, extra batteries, Pringles, and something to drink. I also have my tennis shoes on. I hate wearing shoes while I'm at home, but it's good to have shoes on during severe weather so if something were to happen to part of the house, I could still walk around. I haven't gotten any stuffed animals yet, but depending on how long this severe weather lasts, I'm not above grabbing Big Red or Josh's Crimson Tide Bear.
