On the evening of Super Tuesday, the weather got a bit rough around here. There were several lines of strong thunderstorms pushing through from the southwest. When it’s 70 degrees in February you know when the cold air comes, the storms are inevitable.
We had had record high temperatures. I had every window in the house open airing the place out. It had been some wonderful weather for the last few days. I even slept two nights with the window open a tad.
BAM!
Tuesday night it was time to pay the Piper for all that good weather.
We had been watching a ball game on TV; not tuned into any local channel. Hubbie was sick with the flu, had taken his large dose of Nyquil and gone to bed. Under normal circumstances Hubbie is a very sound sleeper; with Nyquil he might as well be dead. Telephones can ring right beside him and he won’t wake up.
Lewy decided to go to bed early, so we did the nightly ritual: undress, pee, help in bed, pull up covers, and hope Lewy goes to sleep. That night he did.
It was still very early for me, so I returned to the TV and flipped over to local station to catch the weather. Long red and orange lines of storms were coming in waves moving at about 50 mph. They were a hundred or so miles away, but headed in our direction.
With the rain due to arrive in 10 minutes or so, I leashed up the dogs and took them out for their evening walk. The oldest dog had to be fussed at to get her to go out the door. The overgrown hound-puppy barreled out the door and suddenly stopped.
Both of them had their noses in the air, looking around, obviously very nervous about something. I had to jerk them out to where they “go” and get really scary sounding before either one of them would pee. Finally they both squatted down….as soon as they were done they ran straight back to the front door.
I got them in and just unleashed when the 19 year old cat came to the door wanting out… I let him out. He went about 4 feet in front of the door, sat down, sniffed about, twitched his ears, got up, turned around and wanted back in.
This does not bode well. Critters seem to always know when something isn’t right.
The TV is nothing but wall to wall storm coverage. There are two large storm cells coming our way, but from the storm tracker I can tell they will slide just to the north and to the south of us. They did as I had expected. We got a lot of lightening, wind and rain.
It was getting late, I had gone and piddled with the computer for a while, got up and came through the living room ready to turn off the TV and go to bed. The weather lady was talking about a particular cell that was very strong, multiple possible tornados…all those big hook echoes…and the centerline of the storm track was right on the dot for our tiny little town. This didn’t look good. At this point, the storm was 20 minutes away.
What do you do? They are saying there are actual sightings from trained spotters…there are several showing up on radar…they are coming right at us. I have Lewy, who I couldn’t get up and dressed in 20 minutes, much less take cover. Hubbie is in Nyquil land….
There comes a point where self preservation comes to your mind. I could get in the car and drive straight south for 20 minutes, turn around and come back……Having time to think in a crisis is not necessarily a good thing. There’s really no telling what you might think about.
I decided my only choice was to ride it out. Probably not the smartest decision I ever made. Being in a mobile home under a tornado is not highly recommended in the Owner’s Manual.
The TV zoomed in on the storm. Getting stronger. There’s a section of the radar that’s black where it’s coming down so hard. The hook is getting more pronounced; and it is heading directly for us - less than 10 minutes away.
The wind started howling and hail was coming in waves over the house. It was getting down right loud. I looked out the window. It was raining so hard that when the lightening flashed, I could not see my greenhouse no more than 20 feet away.
I went back to the living room to see the radar. They zoomed in on the storm. There were 4-5 of the tornado markers stacked up in a line, one right after the other. The tornados were coming across roads that are right to our southwest. The TV in the living room went out. (We live out in the woods, so we have a satellite dish. Satellite dishes do not take kindly to storms.)
I trotted into the bathroom where we have a TV wired with a local antenna. Both dogs and the cat were right there with me. The TV came on and they were zoomed in on the storm cells. Then the weather lady zoomed in close enough to see the streets…there we were…. These storms were right on top of us. OMG! All I can do is stare at the TV!
Just then they broke away to another set of storms just coming into the area. HOLY CRAP!
The house was shaking. The dogs were shaking. I was shaking. The cat was yowling. The TV said if you are in a mobile home get out, go get in a ditch. Yeah right. I’m gonna get out of my house where I might be fine and go out into this storm where I know I’m gong to get my ass killed. Yeah that’s a plan. I think I’ll go get Lewy…
BOOM! Lightening. The sound was there before the light was gone. Then another strike and another. Lightening was coming down all around us.
Hail was pounding down on the roof. It was getting so loud I could no longer hear the TV. The house shook. Then the freight train came and rumbled over the house. The dogs were leaning on me whimpering…..I knew exactly how they felt. I whimpered too.
The worst part of the storm lasted just a few minutes then it settled into just a bad storm that lasted all night.
We have lived in this particular spot for 30 years. In that time we have convinced ourselves that the hills behind us protects us from the storms that come from the southwest and west. Once again the storms ripped through our neighbors to the southwest, jumped over us and landed to the northwest of us a few miles away.
As of today, there are still people missing. The search and rescue teams found more dead.
Truth is I don’t think there is anything I could do with Lewy in such as case, but hunker down the best we can, and hope for one more round of good fortune.
But if our time is up, let it be quick.
3 comments:
Stella said...
I am so relieved that you are safe. It was a terrible night for you. You were so brave and I'm sure you must have felt the presence of God in the midst of such danger. I held my breath as I read your story.
Anonymous said...
Pauline,
I loved reading your accounts of the storm and "Living with Lewy Body". A difficult question what to do with a loved one who is so difficult to move. Makes me think of the husband and wife that owned the nursing home in New Orleans and were prosecutd for all those that died when they decided to wait out the storm. And whose to say there wouldn't have been greater fatalities if they had tried to move those patients. None of us can predict the future. I was glad to hear that the inditment was dropped last year.
My critter too was behaving very strangely when the storms were headed toward Nashville at 9:00 pm that evening. She doesn't usually do that but was actually wimpering which caused us to pack up the Red Cross survival kit, jewelry and cell phone and head toward the basement. The tornadoes seemed to skip over Nashvill the same way they skipped over your mobile home.
We must be living right as our angels are definitely working overtime.
Harold said...
I almost called you Tuesday night, but thought better of it b/c I knew it would do no good and might wake Lewy. I saw the storms right on top of you on the radar. Hate that you were virtually alone. I was too, but my situation was less scary. Glad ya'll made it.