Writer Wednesday-Tell Us About A Natural Disaster
That’s right, it’s Writer Wednesday time again! Today’s topic is about natural disasters and being a Texan, I can’t pass up the opportunity to talk about our state mascot: the tornado.
Okay, tornadoes are not *actually* the state mascot but we certainly see our share of them. My son’s first soccer team was called the Tornadoes in honor of the phenomenon. Tornado sirens are a common sound in the spring and again in the winter when they test them. We take our tornadoes like we take our football–seriously.
Scarcely a spring goes by that we don’t hear about at least one or two tornadoes touching down in the DFW area. Here’s the interesting thing about tornadoes. They don’t stay on the ground very long, and in the city, they lose momentum pretty fast. But when you hear that siren, you don’t care. It’s time to get in the closet.
We have a small coat closet under the stairs and that’s our designated tornado shelter. I would put money on every resident of North Texas having a designated tornado “spot”. It’s supposed to be the most central room in the house with no windows…or a bathtub, but then they say to put a mattress over the bathtub and that’s too difficult in the split seconds that you have from the time the siren go off until it’s all over. So it’s the closet for us.
Except tornado season really isn’t that long, so the closet gets crammed with other stuff. We’ve taken to watching the weather religiously so we know when a line of thunderstorms is headed our way, and if there’s tornado potential, we empty the closet and get ready.
The first time we had to do that when my youngest son was old enough to understand what it meant was not a good scene. We were watching the news and you know how the media likes to make everything sound more dramatic than it is? Yeah. That and a four year old is not a good combination.
Then they started talking about funnel clouds on the ground. And showed videos of tractor trailers being tossed around like Lego pieces. Granted, this was in the Arlington area and we’re about fifty miles from there. But still. We even made CNN.
The thing about tornadoes is that it could be fifty miles away, disappear and reform right over you. So we sat in the closet and my son was terrified for hours. Did you watch the clip? I was a little shaky too. 🙂 We only got rain from that storm, thank God.
We all still have a Pavlovian response to the sirens. But if it keeps us safe, that’s okay.
If you want to read more great stories from other authors who lived through their own natural disasters, read on by clicking the names below!
If you’re looking for something new to read, a couple of the ladies have releases this month. Check them out:
**Writer Wednesday Participants
Priscilla Kissinger – Kay Hudson – Carol Post – Natalie Meg Evans – Kristen Ethridge – Wendy LaCapra – Jean Willett
I’m glad you were safe, Kat! I cannot imagine spending hours in a beneath-the-stairs closet :/
Great post, Kat! I think tornadoes are scarier than hurricanes because of how little time you have to prepare. At least we have a few days notice before we get hit with a hurricane.
So you guys are like Harry Potter and live under your stairs occasionally huh? Glad you have a safe place to go. That video shows how real the danger is!
(So do you keep water and food in the closet too, or perhaps even a porta potty? LOL)
Kat,
I remember when we lived in the San Angelo, TX area as a kid and we dealt with tornado sirens– for practice and for real.
One time, my dad had just come home from the hospital after breaking his ankle and requiring major reconstructive surgery. My mom was in the kitchen cooking with the tv on, but she was only half listening.
Suddenly we hear the tornado warning from the TV and my mom ran out of the kitchen, yelling at us to all head to the walk-in closet in their room. (like you said, in Texas we treat our tornadoes like we treat our football- seriously!) Dad’s hopping from the living room on his crutches. My sister and I are racing down the hall. Together with my mom we struggle to drag their king-size mattress to cover ourselves in the closet. Just as we got settled, dad wincing in pain, we hear: This has been a test by the Emergency Broadcast System….
Needless to say, none of us were thrilled about the scare. Especially dad who was in terrible terrible pain. But, we knew we could gather the troops and respond quickly if needed! 🙂
Oooh, it makes me shudder, the idea of tornadoes so devastating, you have warning sirens. Like London in the Blitz! We don’t do Armageddon weather in Britain (though from our national reaction when we get snowfall of more than five inches deep, you’d think we have special, radioactive snow over here) but we are avid watchers of cable channel tv featuring wild, mad weather. I think, secretly, we’d like to have a twister equal to lifting a church off the ground, but afterwards, we’d moan like crazy. Basically, we like to talk about weather, and watch it from our armchairs.
I have to agree with Carol–at least we know when a hurricane is headed our way (although the hurricanes do spawn tornados sometimes). I did get to hear that freight train roar once–hiding behind a refrigerator in an appliance store while a tornado raced down the main drag in New Iberia, Louisiana.
I know the sound of that siren. My parents have a storm shelter in the ground and have been through several tornadoes the last few years. They are worse than a hurricane in the damage they wreak. When I lived in Louisiana we had a tornado go over our house, take our boat from the carport area and deposit it in a back field. Go figure. The house next door had its roof shifted and we simply lost a shutter. Finding those safe places is key. Glad you have one!