Back In The Tornado Shelter

“Max, please, don’t be like this. We have to go.” I reached my hand under the bed and grabbed for him. He backed away and tossed me a silent meow.

He told me off. My own cat told me off when all I was trying to do was SAVE him. Did he not hear the tornado alarms?

“Max, I’m leaving. If you want to risk getting swept away, that’s on you.” I wiggled myself further under the bed and came face to face with multiple dust bunnies. Yuck. I needed to clean. And I would, if our home was still intact. “Come here!” I managed to touch his paw—which immediately swiped at my hand, leaving a scratch. “Fine! Fine. You stay there then.” I slithered away from the bed and rushed downstairs.

“My friends are ready!” Natalie said cheerfully. She stood holding an armful of stuffed animals. Glittery shoes were on her feet.

Tommy had his Nintendo DS, plus the charger.

“You know there is no plug in the shelter,” I reminded him.

He shrugged. “I know. But in case our house is blown away, at least I’ll have the plug with me.”

That made sense. Only I hoped our house wouldn’t get blown away. The tornado alarm was wailing and that meant a tornado could potentially hit our area. We clambered down into the tornado shelter and waited. I watched the local news from my phone. El Reno was hit, which made me sad, especially when I heard that one of the fatalities was a mother and child. Nothing was close to us and then…

…suddenly I heard that a tornado was in our path.

I didn’t panic. I couldn’t panic. Both kids would watch my face, wondering what was about to happen. So I had to smile and say, “Isn’t this an adventure?” while I kept thinking, “Oh please, oh please, don’t hit.”

We stayed in the shelter for an hour. Then our alarms went away. We were in the clear. The only thing that was going to hit us were severe storms.

Those severe storms caused awful flooding. You might have seen pictures online or on the news. I always know it’s serious when we make it on Fox News or CNN.

The thunderstorms lasted from midnight to 5 AM.

I did not sleep.

I’d drift off and then BOOM! Thunder.

I’d drift off and then WEEEEE WEEEE WEEEE my emergency alert from my phone would go off, warning me of floods in the area. It would startle me each time. The high pitched screeching reminded me of Justin Bieber singing. Awful.

I’d drift off and BOOM.

Drift off and BOOM. CRASH. FLASH! (Lightening. No one flashed me, thank goodness.)

It went like this for 5 hours. I was surprised Natalie didn’t run in. She slept through the entire thing.

Max the Cat did not.

He was getting irritated on being disturbed so at 2 AM I heard him go, “MEEEOOWWWW! MEEEEOWWWW!”

He also reminded me of Justin Bieber. Or Justin Timberlake. Maybe I’m not a Justin fan, period.

I was in the middle of sleeping when my phone rang. I didn’t get to it on time. I saw it was Tom’s sister. She left a message saying Tom was worried because I wasn’t answering his Facebook messages.

Oh for—I was sleeping!

So I grabbed my phone and sure enough, I had messages from Tom asking if I was okay. I replied that I was and that I was SLEEPING because of the stupid storms.

“Sorry. The last thing I read on your Facebook was you telling the storms to piss off so you could sleep and that there was floods. I was worried,” he said.

Aw. That was sweet.

(And yes, at about 3 AM I had enough of the storms and ranted about them online. I am not pleasant when my sleep is disturbed. That’s why my kids learned at a young age to NOT wake me up at the butt crack of dawn.)

So that was our storm adventure. Again.

Tornado season is still here so I imagine there will be more.

(Although when the thunder and lightening went off for FIVE hours back to back I sort of was hoping that the display was the grand finale of the crazy tornado season. Sort of like what they do at Disney at the end of the day with fireworks..)

(Wishful thinking?)


I'd also like to say that the families of those who lost people in the latest round of tornadoes are in my thoughts.