Ugh, this is the part of living in the South I don't like. Story ahead. Friday the kids had school off so I took the opportunity to go grocery shopping without Rose and actually headed out all the way to Ft. Campbell and the commissary (I usually go to the Walmart near here since it's a half hour drive to post). I walked into the commissary with my sunglasses on because the sun was out although there were some clouds. I ran into this black lady that was shopping with some friends and family and she was wearing a tube top. She had all of her coupons stuck in her top fanned out across her chest. I thought this was very funny and actually happened to have my camera in my purse. I'm pretty much stalking her, thinking, this would be so fun to put on my blog if she'll let me take a picture but what are the chances she (or her friends and family) might punch me in the face if I ask to take a picture of her chest? Do I really want to die for my blog? I'm torn. As I'm about halfway through the commissary, I start to notice EVERYONE is on their cell phone and I keep hearing the word "tornado". I suddenly remembered that when I checked the weather the day before there was a chance of some severe thunderstorms but since the sun had been out that morning, I just went on my merry way. I looked towards the front of the store where the windows are and realize the sky was now basically black and it was really storming. Then I hear tornado sirens faintly. I grew up with them so I know what I am hearing. I look around me and although everyone is talking on their phones, no one seems concerned. The loudspeaker keeps telling us ham is on sale but nothing about the weather. I can't use my phone to call the kids because I never get service in buildings but I knew my trusty weather radio would tell the kids what they needed to know. Despite the fact that it is as dark as night outside and there are sirens going off, people kept checking out and leaving. I decided to shop really slowly in the hopes the storm would pass as quickly as it came. In all this, I lost sight of that funny lady and my chance to get punched in the face. Darn. Finally I get through the checkout and it has lightened so much I can even see patches of blue sky. I look towards the southeast where I live and see some pretty yucky looking sky. I could see the kids had tried to call a few times and had left a voice message. It was Nick and the message was this--"There's a tornado. Hope you're not dead." I call them up and they are huddled in the bathroom just like they were supposed to be and listening intently to the radio so they would know what was going on. I tried to call Jer during all this but couldn't get ahold of him either. Anyway, I decided I better head towards home (and the storm) and keep the kids on speaker phone while I was driving. I basically was right behind the storm the entire time I was driving home and when one of the boys told me he had just looked out the window and the sky seemed green, I'm like--get in the bathroom and stay there! I just remember my dad (who grew up in Kansas) would always look for greenish light during tornado warnings. As I head down I-24 and cross from KY into TN I can see he was right and to the east of I-24, the sky was quite green. We were very fortunate that the storm/tornado did no damage here but in Murfreesboro which is sort of halfway between us and Mel and Josh, they weren't so lucky. A mom and her 9 wk old baby were killed in their home that was in the tornado's path. Very sad. Again yesterday we had more storm warnings but nothing terrible.
My weather radio has been getting quite the workout and I am so thankful I bought it since we have no cable tv.
It's just so weird to have blue skies and an hour later, dark, thunderous clouds. I miss Arizona a bit. You definitely miss out on colors like these--but is it worth it?
3 comments:
I figured you guys had some bad weather around Friday because you seem to have it whenever we do. Glad to hear you are all doing well- we certainly seem to be having thunderstorm after thunderstorm lately.
I am so glad you and your family are ok. I check the weather for your area and Georgia where Mike is. I was freaking out for you guys and Mike . They had him doing P.T. in that weather. Mike is ok and I am glad you guys are also.Where do you get the weather radios from?
So how does a weather radio go? Do you just always have it on, or did you know your kids would be tuned in because the sky looked bad? I know this is probably a dumb question, but your talking to a complete arizona girl.
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