Wild Weather

Last February, on the 28th to be exact, I found myself having to drive a different route home from work on Signal Mountain due to a funnel cloud that tore a path across the mountain, splintering tons of trees and toppling power lines.  I remember the amazement of the path of this funnel cloud turned tornado as I made my descent down the mountain through the town of Red Bank.  Jaw dropped as I saw the devestation that this sudden 'little' storm created.  Everyday I was amazed by mother nature's fury as I had the constant reminder of snapped trees and downed fences on my drive to and from work.

Two months later, on April 27th, I found myself, other teachers, and 180 students in the hallway as the wind and rain tormented us only feet away on the other side of glass windows.  We knew the weather was serious when our principal advised that even the teachers and staff join the students in the hunkered down 'tornado position.'  My fingers worked the keypad of my phone texting Brian updates.  He was at home with Garrison who had his first case of pink eye.  The response I got from Brian was that he and Garrison were in the basement, covered by couch cushions, and had heard something happen outside.  A later text revealed that we lost a huge part of our tree on our new fence.  No biggie, the fence could be replaced.

April 27, 2011   Nothing compared to the rest of the neighborhood and the region.

After that first line of tornadoes, school was dismissed early in anticipation that worse weather was on its way.  The drive home was eerily sunny.  I received a phone call from my neighbor friend telling me that our neighborhood had been on the radio as being struck by 'something.'  A tornado was never confirmed for our one little street, but I have no doubt in my mind that one or a funnel cloud hit.  Trees were snapped in a steady line and the destruction affected some houses about a mile from ours.

That evening was intense.  The newscasters broadcasted all day.  One storm after another.  Tornado warnings never ceased.  The boys and I took shelter in the basement while our dare-devil Brian kept watch upstairs.  At times he joined us.  I remember him calling my upstairs at one point to see the weird debris falling from the sky.  A huge piece of tin roofing landed in our backyard along with lots of insulation.  It was creepy knowing this was coming from someone's property and landing in our yard.  We got off very easy compared to so many in our area.  The devastation was unreal for our little part of the world.

This is how we roll in the basement closet!

Yesterday, we had somewhat of a repeat offense.  The storms were not as bad this go around, but they were still bad.  The news had forecasted bad weather for this day, but I was thinking that everything was coming in the evening.  Brian was needing to study, so I decided to take all three boys to visit my grandmother in the nursing home downtown.  Once we arrived and the receptionist gave a us a brief rundown on what we would need to do if there was a tornado warning, I caught on that something must be coming sooner than later.  I made it to Grandma's room where she had the news on.  I watched for a minute and told her that we could not stay long since I needed to get the boys home and in the basement.  There were tornado warnings already in the neighboring western counties.  We stayed longer than I wanted to.  Longer than I knew we should have.  Once the boys were loaded, I sped home.  I drove toward the ever so darkening sky.  I LOVE weather, but with three little lives riding behind me, I was truly terrified by my decision to get home.  We were home maybe ten minutes when Brian told us to get in the basement closet.  The meteorologist's voice indicated more than a measure of severity in this storm...and we were in the pathway.  Later pictures would reveal a funnel cloud coming off of Signal Mountain, moving over us and across the river and hitting about 10 miles away.  We spent the afternoon and evening listening and watching as more tornado warnings came our way.  Thankfully, we personally just had a repeat of last year where our worst situation was the very 1st storm.  I was worn out by the end of the day just from being on edge.  I am so thankful and feel so blessed to have a basement.  The boys were rockstars!  They handled the 'volcano' situation with such peace and security.