Watch the sky for two hours. Ask storm chaser’s what’s going on. Be told funnel clouds have been sighted less than twenty miles away from your town. Become paranoid. Watch employees from neighboring buisiness run around a busy intersection. Have sirens go off. Call children and tell them to get underground. Shake. Have boss call and tell me to lock the doors and get home ASAP (this is a convenience store-we never close). Espy big, black funnel clound. Run like hell to car, book home (doing well beyond the speed limit), dive with children into basement. Shake like a mofo for an hour. Have local bar call and tell me it’s ok to come out, I’m late for the first night of dart league. Have couple shots and several chasers. Decide my life isn’t all that unexciting. Stop shaking.
Congratulations on your luck in not getting blown away. Where was this tornado? I grew up in Kansas, I well remember tornado drills in school, and last week marked the 35th anniversary of the big one that went through Topeka.
The dart game went quite well considering I’d never played before. It’s a good thing the bar called or I may have stayed in the basement all night etc.
I live in SW Minnesota so bad weather is pretty common. The town I live in was pretty much wiped out by a tornado some time in the early 1920’s.
The weatherman predicts more spring storms today and the sky is looking nasty in the west. Hope it doesn’t mean round two of basement shaking.
I’ve lived too long in Oklahoma, I guess. We’ve gotten pretty blase about twisters, at least on our side of Stillwater.
Tornado sirens go off, we amble up to the top of the hill where the storm shelter is for our neighborhood, look in the direction of the tornado and say “Hey. Pretty cool. But it’s just a bitty one.” Watch it follow I-35 as usual, wonder how much better the view is from the upper level dorms at Oklahoma State and how many people are sitting on top of the Press Box at the stadium, drinking beer and watching the tornado, wander back down the hill and pop a movie in the DVD player.
I didn’t even realize they got tornados in Minnesota.
Curiously we had a “mini-tornado” in Seattle yesterday. It struck a school playground, picking up the playground supervisor (leaving her shoes behind) and dropping her about six feet away. Several kids were also blown around.
No real harm done, just some frightened “participants” and a lot of questions – e.g. “What was that?”. The weather service studied it and declared it really was a tiny tornado. We get some unusual wind/weather patterns occasionally and, although tornadoes are extremely rare around here, everything came together in this instance.
Rumors that the playground supervisor resembled the Wicked Witch of the West, and that one of the children, named Dorothy, owned a dog named Toto were quickly squelched.
Damn, what a great word.
I live in Michigan, and (unbeknowest to many) we are actually tied with Kansas in number of tornados in a state. Kansas is more famous for it, prolly because of The Wizard of Oz, but we cope. However, me and most of my friends have developed many of the same non-chalance(sp?) as mentioned by Arden Ranger. The other day, ok, like a month ago, I was at school an hour before one of my finals to study with some of my friends. Tornado sirens go off. We say, screw that, we’re studying. Told by principal (i’m in high school) to go somewhere safe. Keep studying. All clear signal goes off. Keep studying. No stress, take final, kick final’s ass.
Man, at least your principal was paying enough attention to notice the sirens. I was taking a final three weeks ago and the tornado sirens started going off. The professor just sat there at his desk, completely oblivious.
And at no time were we forced to cower in the basement. We could leave if we wanted. Everyone stayed.
Course, that final was something of a tornado itself.
We had tornado drills in Illinois, too. Several tornados have hit the area, most notably in 1910 and '11. In the past few decades, only one funnel cloud even came close. I was in third or fourth grade and saw this funnel cloud out the window. There was nothing normally associated with one, no dark clouds, no rain, no hail, just a funnel cloud in what would have been just a normal partly-cloudy day.
Last tornado here (couple of weeks ago) My sister spent the entire event wandering around the 'hood with a pack of other urchins playing in the heavy rain and hail.
We don’t get too worried unless the house next door is going up.
Maybe it’s just me being easily amused in my delerious state, but this had be laughing for almost 20 minutes tops. I can just imagine kids being blown around the school yard…hehehe…okay, time for more medication.
I live in Brisbane, Australia, and I’ve never seen a real-life tornado before, but I’m still horrifically scared of them. I think I’d break down and cower in a corner for an hour, rocking back and forth in the fetal position if there was ever a chance of there being a tornado in BrisVegas.