After the Storm
I've lived in the South on and off for the last 23 years, I've been through enough tornado seasons and severe weather to know when to worry and when to go to bed. My best friend's home was destroyed by a tornado when we were in high school and my mom and brother were almost killed by one when I was growing up. That time, it took my dad and I almost 6 hours to find them. We're veterans.
After all of that, I'm not sure I have ever been as concerned about the weather as I was yesterday and last night. For the better part of 8 hours we were bombarded by storms. Not one, not two, but so many individual storm cells that the weather men couldn't keep up. At one point they were tracking a tornado on the ground 10 miles from my house, headed straight towards us. No big deal, right? Wrong. At the same time there were reports of funnel clouds (by professional spotters) on the other three sides. We were literally surrounded. Did I mention it was dark and we couldn't see a thing??
I got The Brain dressed and mom and I got out emergency supplies and bags and got everything into the bathroom and we waited. The wind and rain were such that it sounded like the roof was going to peel off. Through it all we listened to the TV and radio broadcasting up to minute coverage of where the storms were.
It was the night that seemed like it would never end. But it did. We were sooooo fortunate! No real damage to speak of, and though there were several confirmed tornados in my city it appears that they never went below the tree line. While some areas lost power no nothing was really damaged. A big chunk of my city was taken out by a F-4 in 1989, that's the one that my mom and brother were in. Last night, one of the tornados eerily tracked the exact same path that the one in 1989 took. Listening to the radio was like traveling back in time into a nightmare.
I am including several pictures that were taken last night and posted on one of the local sites here. I am only including pictures taken in my city to give you some idea of what we were dealing with last night.
Say a special prayer for all of those families that were not so fortunate yesterday. Tennessee was hit hard and loved ones were lost. It's easy to forget that.
This picture was taken off one of our downtown parking garages right as the first storm began entering the city.
Pictures of the wall cloud as the second wave of storms came in. The closer the storms came the darker it got. These pictures were all taken within about 30 minutes of each other. People around here know that when you see a wall cloud that looks like this you take cover.
Like I said, it was a long night.
After all of that, I'm not sure I have ever been as concerned about the weather as I was yesterday and last night. For the better part of 8 hours we were bombarded by storms. Not one, not two, but so many individual storm cells that the weather men couldn't keep up. At one point they were tracking a tornado on the ground 10 miles from my house, headed straight towards us. No big deal, right? Wrong. At the same time there were reports of funnel clouds (by professional spotters) on the other three sides. We were literally surrounded. Did I mention it was dark and we couldn't see a thing??
I got The Brain dressed and mom and I got out emergency supplies and bags and got everything into the bathroom and we waited. The wind and rain were such that it sounded like the roof was going to peel off. Through it all we listened to the TV and radio broadcasting up to minute coverage of where the storms were.
It was the night that seemed like it would never end. But it did. We were sooooo fortunate! No real damage to speak of, and though there were several confirmed tornados in my city it appears that they never went below the tree line. While some areas lost power no nothing was really damaged. A big chunk of my city was taken out by a F-4 in 1989, that's the one that my mom and brother were in. Last night, one of the tornados eerily tracked the exact same path that the one in 1989 took. Listening to the radio was like traveling back in time into a nightmare.
I am including several pictures that were taken last night and posted on one of the local sites here. I am only including pictures taken in my city to give you some idea of what we were dealing with last night.
Say a special prayer for all of those families that were not so fortunate yesterday. Tennessee was hit hard and loved ones were lost. It's easy to forget that.
This picture was taken off one of our downtown parking garages right as the first storm began entering the city.
Pictures of the wall cloud as the second wave of storms came in. The closer the storms came the darker it got. These pictures were all taken within about 30 minutes of each other. People around here know that when you see a wall cloud that looks like this you take cover.
And then it got dark.
Like I said, it was a long night.
When it's dark you have to rely on lightning to show you what's going on. It's scary.
We were so lucky!
posted by Andria @12:03 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks! No, I didn't personally take these picutures but I could have. Like I said, all of these pictures were taken very close to where I live.
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