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Rhonda and I were lounging on
the front patio. In house plants were arranged outside, the cement clean and
the clutter of winter was gone. We were happily listening to the birds
singing. There had been a rain with a heavy pelting on the back tin roof but
here under the grape vine arbor we were free from the sound and the
moisture.
At about the same time, the
tornado siren went off and the telephone rang. “Mom, you had better get to
the center of the house, there's a tornado down on the ground close to you.”
My son was trying to warn me but tornadoes in Oklahoma have been such a life
time happening I never get too excited about them.
“Oh well,” I'm thinking, “cry
wolf.” We were outside so I was sure I could see or hear it if the thing was
close. Two cars rushed by the front drive at racing speeds but I'm still not
impressed. “I suppose they are off to wherever that siren is sounding,” and
these were my thoughts.
“There was a house leveled
over here about a mile from me.” My son's voice sounded like he was
thoughtful. Like water dripping through a leaky roof information started
coming through via the telephone.
“Is everything all right with
your son and daughter? We heard there was a tornado close to you?” Someone I
didn't even know called. She told me her name and I did know her family. I
thought that was considerate but didn't worry too much about it.
“Oh, I am hearing reports,
but personally did not see anything.” I reasured the woman with the pleasant
voice that we were not disturbed.
The next morning my daughter
and her little family walked up to the front patio where we were again
enjoying the outdoors.
“I took a video of the
tornado's destruction.” She seemed thoughtful and made not much of a
comment. “It struck less than a block from here.”
“Oh really?” I was still not
that interested and it wasn't until the afternoon when we drove into town
did I get a full view of the damage. Sure enough just a little less than a
block from us it was like a giant weed eater had whipped through a stand of
trees. They were twisted and had been slammed in every direction. As if
interested all at once my husband turned right on the highway instead of
left to go into town. A mile over, on Hunt Road there were numbers of cars
lined up in the drive way of what had been a house and barn. Debris was
scattered over the pasture as if some untidy giant had dropped bits of his
belongings, there. Where the house had been was as level as the lawn around
it. No sign of the barn was there. The next day the paper said the tornado
had picked up three of the family. They were dropped onto the road and were
found walking together. I would love to hear their account of that. The
other two people had to be rescued from the house.
“It looks to me like there
was more than one,” my husband commented. Sure enough the paper told there
were actually two. It seemed to me the thing had been playing checkers,
dropping down on only square objects, houses and sheds.
So then, what do we learn
from this? Absolutely nothing. A tornado is so unpredictable, like this one
that was raging and tearing things up on the hill across from me and I
didn't even see it. That loud, obnoxious siren goes off every Thursday for
testing. It sounds so much I am conditioned to try to ignore the thing. To
tell you the truth I thought they were testing it again. The streets and
roads were so full of cars and people gawking at the misery of others we
didn't dare get out. Some did and could hardly get back to their home.
Rod, my husband, is talking
about an above ground shelter which would be the only way we could use one
with Rhonda, so maybe there will be a positive thing to come out of the day
of June 4, 2005. |
