If you’ve had the news on, you might have seen a blurb about the spate of tornados we had Saturday. Unless you live in one of the affected states, in which case if you’ve had the news on, all you’ve seen is coverage of the tornado damage.
I was at a craft meet-up at a large church Saturday; one of the other people had brought her radio and we listened for the weather alerts. I was texting back and forth with Alpha Geek:
Me: Tornado watch till 9:00
He: Winds at 3000 feet are 53 knots
I keep forgetting this about pilots: they constantly monitor the weather.
For the first time in my life, I heard the mechanical weather alert voice say “TAKE SHELTER FOR YOUR LIFE.” We heeded the warning and hustled into the church basement. Alpha Geek texted me to let me know he and the boys were doing the same thing at home. I learned later they had to herd Duchess into the basement, as she was trying to hide upstairs.
The storm system was moving at seventy miles an hour, so it was all past us fairly quickly—but it left a lot of damage in its wake. In our area it was pretty minor. Some water got in under one of the church basement doors and there was a little flooding. Branches down in the home neighborhood. In downtown Raleigh, it was worse: roofs blown off buildings, windows busted, cars damaged. To the south in Sanford, the roof got blown off a Lowe’s improvement store. The news today has been nothing but footage of destroyed homes and businesses, reports on casualties, reports on school and company closings, reports on available shelters.
So if you’ve been watching the news, and were concerned because you remembered I live in this area, we’re all fine here. And all counting ourselves fortunate indeed.