We were at the church building practicing for the Jubilee when all of a sudden our excitement for fun dances turned to an odd foreboding, maybe even dread.
"Are you done?" one mother asked with a sense of urgency, "I need to take these boys home."
"We can be...is something wrong?"
We learned Dallas County and others had been placed under a tornado watch. These forecasts are not too disconcerting as they don't seem to amount to much (usually), but we understood the concern. Certainly we can be done, we said, and sent people home.
It seemed not two seconds after we sent a few youth home that a few more persons arrived and we discovered our tornado watch had become a tornado warning. Curious, we strode over to one of the building doors. It looked like night time as we approached them, but as soon as our eyes settled on the sky above we knew the sun was still setting. My blood pressure began to rise as I immediately took note of the color, "So that's the deep grey green my sister always talks about." Hubby was there to give me a big hug and reassure me that everything would be fine. After the green sky came howling winds, pea and golf ball size hail, and a few more nervous persons.
After nine the warnings turned to watches again, but the weather man was predicting more brutal hail. The hubby and I decided to trek home and get the car into the garage. We drove through hail, saw downed trees in the road, and saw what looked like downed power lines. The power all down our street and beyond was out. Once inside we looked out our windows - the rain was getting worse. And then we heard it. "Is that a siren?" I asked. We listened a few more seconds, then I felt like a hyperactive gopher. I grabbed my 72-hour kit, hubby grabbed Harry Potter, and we went downstairs. We weren't there long before we heard the winds howling low and long. Into the bathroom we went to wait for a little while.
The storm cell was soon over our house with thunder and lightning striking synonymously overhead. The rain became so thick and heavy it looked like thick fog or smoke. We retreated a couple times to our car for the radio.
Though no tornadoes touched down last night, we were grateful we had a plan and a simple stash of supplies. Thank goodness for mothers who prepared us with smarts and kits when we were little. It's kind of funny too, we didn't come up with our tornado plan until a few days ago, and not a moment too soon.
