Tale of a Twister

Earlier this week, Alexa alerted me that the National Weather Service had issued a tornado watch for my area.  It was to be in effect until 3:00am.  As I was getting ready for bed, I paused to wonder if I should be concerned that it could develop into a tornado warning while I was sawing logs.  I considered going down to our lower level and sleeping in the guest room but decided against it.  The older I get, the stronger the pull to sleep in my own bed.

When I was a kid, I was terribly afraid that a tornado would come while I was sleeping.  I’m not sure if I picked up on my mother’s fear of the same, if I watched The Wizard of Oz one too many times, or if I was just a worry wart.  (My mother, a seasoned worrier, often said to me, ‘Don’t be such a worry wart’.  That used to upset me more than the thing I was worrying about.  Warts were so gross!)

In any case, I was a child on heightened alert during tornado weather and whenever a tornado watch was issued, I would reluctantly go to bed, asking my parents to be sure to wake me up if there was a tornado warning so we could go down the basement – which we did, on more than one occasion.

I also used to have a recurring dream about a tornado.  Like Dorothy, I would be rushing toward home as the wind picked up.  I can still picture myself standing on our patio reaching for the screen door.  All I had to do was open that door and run down the basement stairs and I would be ‘safe.’  In my dream, with the screen door handle in my hand, I would turn and look over my shoulder.  The funnel was always a block or so away.  I guessed it to be on Main Street between Caskey’s Funeral Home and the old car wash. 

The dream always ends there.  Did I run down the stairs to safety?  Did I stand there with my mouth hanging open and get swept up?  I never find out.

Many years later, on March 15, 2012, MOH and I were living in Dexter, Michigan when the real deal came through our neighborhood.  MOH, my son, and our three dogs were at home.  The weather was ridiculously hot for March (77 degrees) and it was humid and stormy.  I was driving home from work when I received a text message from MOH.  “Don’t come home, tornado headed our way.”

I was already halfway home, and I wasn’t sure what to do or where to go, so I went to Meijer, of course.  I can’t recall now whether I grabbed a cart and intended to shop or not, but it was a surreal experience.  There was an announcement on the loudspeaker that a tornado had been sighted in Dexter and that we should take cover.  I wouldn’t say it was chaotic, but there was a lot of confusion.  I was still near the front of the store and watched the confusion at the checkouts, which were still mostly staffed by cashiers at that time.  Some customers hurried from the store, leaving their items on the checkout conveyors, suddenly deciding they needed to be somewhere else.  Some people still wanted to get their groceries and were upset when the managers began directing customers and cashiers away from the registers and toward the produce area.  Apparently, the tornado shelter at the Meijer on Zeeb Road is in the cooler behind the milk and eggs.  Like a good rule follower, I went with the other employees and customers that were following the manager. 

I remember there was a woman browsing the bunches of bananas as we passed through.  The manager asked her to come with us, but she calmly waved him away, intent on her task.  That’s what really stood out to me – the people that hurried elsewhere, the people that calmly took shelter, and the people that couldn’t be bothered to alter their planned day.

Back at home, MOH was standing on our patio recording the clouds on his phone as they twisted into a funnel cloud, then dissipated, then formed again, becoming what would later be categorized as an EF-3 tornado.  My two humans and three dogs did take shelter in our lower level.  My son told me how our two dachshunds lay calmly, even limply, in his lap, while our black lab paced and howled low in his throat.

Meteorologists have certainly learned a lot about weather patterns since I was a kid, but tornadoes are still mysterious, dangerous, and unpredictable.  One of the trees in our yard was uprooted, but other neighbors lost dozens.  Our house sustained some minor shingle and siding damage.  Another house in our subdivision was flattened.  Our nephew, also on his way home from work, thought he was getting out of the path of the storm by pulling into our neighborhood.  Turns out he was meeting the storm straight on.  All the windows in his car imploded as he sat in the driver’s seat, having pulled over to the side of the road.

I’m not sure how to end my story, and I could continue on, describing – or trying to describe – how long it took me to get home, the sights I saw on my way home, and how for days and months afterwards everything looked different, new, and weird.   But no matter how I tried I wouldn’t be able to fully describe it.

I guess I’ll just end by saying we were lucky – incredibly lucky.  I do know that the thing we fear often manifests itself differently than we had imagined – if at all.  We were certainly lucky, and we’ll always remember.