Current mood:	nostalgic
Current music:	The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks
Entry tags:	family

Twister Tales
It's interesting to realize what memories tornadic weather will bring to the surface...

There was a large open field across the street behind my childhood home. A large silo once stood there, taken down bit by bit every time a tornado or damaging winds blew through the area. I think the last bit of it was blown away the year a tornado wiped out one house and part of another just down the street from my grandparents, at the corner where our two streets came together.

I remember one afternoon while we lived there, probably close to Easter, when a tornado warning had been issued. The sky had a greenish tint to it as we hurried around the house, opening windows and doors before hiding in a bathroom. I heard on a local weather report this morning that was a myth that many people held to back then.

When we lived in the Shreveport area, there always seemed to be bad weather on Easter weekend, usually on Saturday. Several years before we moved there, a big tornado destroyed a big section of Bossier City on Easter weekend. It was referred to on the news every year around that time, especially if that type of weather was forecast.

One November, when Billy and I lived up north of Shreveport, we had gone to my parents' house to celebrate Mama's birthday. Sometime that Saturday morning, Billy's parents called us to let us know a tornado had passed through our neighborhood and that we had some damage to our property. We didn't know the extent of things and worried the whole way home; I was also very concerned about my cat. When we got there, we saw that several pine trees had the tops twisted and broken. Our storage shed in the backyard had been turned, then flipped onto its side. The riding mower that Billy kept chained to it had been dangling from a corner by the chain; our neighbor Ron had let it down so it wouldn't end up crashing to the ground if the chain gave way. Strong winds had come up under the front porch and lifted it up, posts and all, off the foundation of house. When it came back down, some of the posts were half perched on the foundation and others were precariously balanced on the edge. Limbs and twigs were scattered all around the yard. One small twig had been drilled by the wind right through one of the shutters on the front of the house. I forgot where our rocking chairs from the front porch ended up. The cat was fine physically, but ever since then, whenever there's thunder or high winds, she gets spooked and hides. Even the slightest thunder makes her nervous.

A few years later, after we built a house in north Bossier, we went to Hot Springs, AR, for a weekend. It was near Easter, maybe even that weekend. We woke Saturday morning to news on The Weather Channel that a tornado had destroyed a trailer park and several homes in Benton, not far from where we lived. We immediately headed home, not knowing what to expect. As we drove into the Benton area, we saw total destruction in some areas: trailers splintered, some completely missing from their concrete pads. Others had been ripped in half. Several people were missing; many had been killed. As we headed further south, things were calmer. You could see the path the tornado had taken, from its beginnings in North Shreveport, across the Red River, and through Benton, before lifting and disappearing. Thankfully our home, nor any others in our neighborhood, had no damage. Our neighborhood was new enough that there were no trees in some areas and very small ones elsewhere. An older neighborhood across the street had some tree damage, but not a lot.

We were living in that same house when Caleb was born. He was six days old when we had another severe storm system move through the area. It was a Saturday evening in mid-March, not long before Easter. A weather alert came on the TV, warning that a tornado had been spotted in our area. Billy had already cleared out room for us in the small coat closet in the entry hall and put some blankets on the floor. I sat there, on a broken tailbone, holding my newborn and worrying that I wouldn't be able to hold on to him if a tornado ripped through our house. Billy stood outside the closet for a little while and I worried about him, too. Then he squeezed in with us and pushed a pillow over us to protect us in case anything fell. It passed without incident.

A few weeks later we were at Aunt Susie and Uncle Mike's house for Easter. More bad weather was passing through the area, bringing with it quite a bit of hail. Aunt Susie reassured us that we could all fit and be safe in the large closet she affectionately calls "the tomb". I don't remember actually having to hide in there, but things did get pretty scary for a while.

When Jacob was two or three months old, we had another close scare. We were living in an older house in an older neighborhood not far from where we had previously built. Billy and I were awakened in the night when debris started flying around, hitting our house and windows. He switched on his weather radio and heard a tornado warning for our area. He got Caleb out of bed while I got Jacob; then we met in our bathroom and waited it out. The boys slept through the whole thing, but Billy and I had a hard time getting back to sleep after it was over with. I don't remember any major damage from that storm, but we may have had some limbs down in the back.

Since we've been in Texas, we've had our share of scares, but nothing like last night. We've always planned out where we would go in each place we lived. In Richardson, we had a huge closet under our upstairs neighbors' indoor stairway. In our last apartment, there was the boys' bathroom, or ours. The only problem there was that we were upstairs and didn't know our downstairs neighbors, so we didn't feel we could evacuate to their apartment if the need arose. I really don't know what we would have done, not that it matters anymore. In our house, we have the utility room or either bathroom to take shelter in.

It was nearly dark when we got home last night, and it was still raining a little, so I didn't check out the yard. When I got up this morning, I went out the front, but nothing was amiss. There were a few stray leaves from someone else's tree on the sidewalk and scattered in the yard. Our tree was just fine. The fence around the backyard was still standing, surprisingly.

Today is just cold and windy. The 40-degree temperatures and 20-30 mph winds kept most of the little kids away from baseball this morning. When we drove up, there was only one little kid talking with our coach. She came over to the van and said it was up to us if we wanted to play, that she had a conflict and wouldn't be able to stay. We decided it was too cold, windy, and wet, so we left to run a few errands. After getting out in the cutting wind a few times, we decided it was time to go home and stay. The boys ate chicken noodle soup and goldfish crackers for lunch and loved it. I ate a can of chunky steak and potato soup. Now that we're all warmed up inside, maybe we'll hole up and watch a movie or curl up with some good books or play a game. It's another lazy weekend with perfect weather for staying inside and doing . . . whatever.